Regarding birds and labels, one year a flock of crows settled on one of my raised bulb beds, and I was surprised to find that the labels they pulled out were the white plastic temporary ones, not the shiny aluminum embossed ones. Perhaps the sharp-edged metal hurt their beaks? Also on birds, if you find a bunch of your crocuses pulled up and the corms devoured, in this part of the world at least, it is likely to be towhees (a bird about the size of a robin that scratches around under shrubs). I have trapped them in mousetraps in the bulb frame. Jane McGary NW Oregon At 04:04 PM 2/10/03 EST, you wrote: >In a message dated 2/10/2003 2:47:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, >batlette@cox.net writes: > > The 'nest' was made up of very small dead pine twigs, several kinds of > painted and unpainted old bent nails, large staples, several 1 1/2 inch > drywall-type screws, couple of old paperclips, AND that wire horseshoe thing > that goes onto the hose sprayer that locks the spray to ON (I've been > looking all over for that for months). > > > Oh, this is so delightful. One year a blue jay (eastern) was decorating a >next just above the patio. He had found a chewing gum wrapper, the shiny >foil reflector kind, and would stick it in one spot in the test, step back >and look at it, cocking his head back and forth, pull it out and reposition >it and repeat the process. Sometimes it fell out of the test when he pulled >it out and he'd swoop down and catch it midair. It was great fun to watch. > > I've stopped using those venetian blind tags because they do disappear. > Bill Lee > Batavia, OH