Q: Our neighbors have chickens and at least one rooster. This rooster crows consistently for hours at a time, usually from 9 a.m. on. It is so loud that you can hear it three houses down with the windows closed. I thought that roosters just crowed at sunrise and that was it. Is this normal and do you have any suggestions I can offer to the rooster's owner to quiet him down?
A: I personally have never found the answer to this problem. A rooster in good condition can and will crow whenever he feels the need to announce his presence. My current neighbors are very tolerant of my animal shenanigans, and I do my best to keep our rooster quiet, but nothing works. I put him downstairs in our basement in a covered carrier every night, and he still starts crowing in the dark carrier as soon as he hears us stirring upstairs and he does not stop. Then I put him outside after the world gets up and goes to work, and he does it all day long. This has been the pattern for every rooster I have ever had. I welcome help from any readers out there who can offer a solution.
Q: Yesterday I saw a blackbird acting very peculiar under the bird feeder. Checking closer I saw that it was pecking and killing a sparrow. Going out I found not one but two dead sparrows, each attacked at the back of its head.
Months ago I saw the same thing, and I couldn't understand the behavior then either. Have you ever heard of this before?
A: There is no mystery of behavior here; this is just life in the natural world.
Most likely the "blackbirds" you have in your yard are grackles, and they are birds that can eat just about anything. Plus they are very clever and opportunistic. They learned that the feeders attract the smaller birds and are just taking advantage of the buffet that you have inadvertently provided for them. Many predatory birds quickly learn that bird feeding stations provide easy pickings, and this is what is going on.
If you do not want to witness the behavior, just take down the feeders for a few days. The little birds will disperse, and the grackles will have to look elsewhere for dinner. Then when everything calms down, you can put up the feeders again, and all will be peaceful until another opportunistic predator sees how the little birds are gathering under the bird feeder.
Q: We have a family of raccoons that have taken up the habit of knocking down our garbage cans every night and scattering the contents about our yard, even though we have the cans securely tied down. We tried scented garbage bags that are supposed to discourage the brutes from doing this, but they obviously do not seem to mind the smell. Is there any other scented deterrent that you can suggest?
A: Raccoons are always hungry, and when their brain tells them food is at hand, there are not many smells on Earth that will change their minds. Plus, they have front paws that are as nimble as a monkey's, so if you can tie a knot in a rope, they can untie it.
What I ended up doing for my garbage cans was to buy a small fiberglass shed from the garden center, and I put the cans in it every night with a padlock on the door. This works very well for me.
