Bushtits

My Asian pear tree has been having a bit of an aphid problem. The Argentinian black ants herd the little juice suckers, and defended them from the ladybugs. They have taken over two trees in an area near my pond. I have been going out regularly and mashing most of the aphids I could easily find but I also haven’t made a big effort to get them all! Just trying to keep them at bay. And the reason I have not been trying to get them _all_ worked out perfectly this morning

This morning I was wandering around and taking it a bit easy because I tweaked my back last week and I heard chirping. I knelt down and stayed very still in order to see where the chirping was coming from and a little flock of birds maybe 20 or so were in a tree about 15 feet away and started flying toward me. I didn’t move and several of them flew right past me about three feet away and then others started landing in the tree right in front of me -the Asian pear.

Bushtits! I didn’t move and stayed very still and several more arrived. Pretty soon there were four or five little Bushtits hopping around literally within grasp, about a foot away from my face devouring aphids. I even already had my reading glasses on and got an incredibly good look at them. I swear I was looking at several right in the eyes. This lasted for probably close to 2 or 3 minutes – maybe as much as 5. I was getting tired of kneeling, and then after a last good look around they flew off.

Now they weren’t perfect. There was a cluster of aphids right at eye level that I could see and they missed. But I didn’t even go in and mash those few remaining aphids. The bushtits now know where to come and look for a bite to eat. If I completely clear out the aphids by spraying them with something toxic I screw up the Bushtits two different ways, 1: by poisoning them and 2: convincing them that there isn’t anything good to eat there and they will stop visiting. And another point, the Argentinian ants utterly failed to defend their herd. — losers! :-)