Birds...what do you see today?

Self | 6/15/2024 | rlmorel

[rlmorel]

Just finished grilling some ribs, sun went down behind the trees, and I am sitting in my backyard hammock looking across my yard up here in New England.

Got my pipe, having a smoke...just perfect.

The birds are having a ball!

There are a lot of adolescent fledges, I count four downy woodpeckers, one who has the beginnings of little strings of red, but they stick out in amusing way, giving it the appearance of a kid with a bad haircut whose cowlick protrudes off the back of his head.

Anyone see anything interesting in your neck of the woods?

[rlmorel]

My backyard...

The Downy Woodpecker fledglings were fun to watch. We have a suet feeder, a wire drum about a foot across that takes two suet cakes, and the bigger birds and squirrels can't get to it, but these little guys can:

So the three Downy Woodpecker fledgelings, looking unkempt, are crawling all over the suet cage, trying to reach the suet, but...they can't. Then, one of them finds out how to get through the wire and begins chowing down on suet while the other two look on. They just cannot figure out how to get in, and it is making them a little frantic. One of them lands on top of the curved poles, and ridiculously can't figure out how to fold his wings because it is a tight space.

Then I saw something I had never seen fledglings do..the one inside picked off a chunk of suet and fed it to his (I presume) sibling! Pretty soon, all three of them had figured out how to get in and out of the cage. Then along comes the older fledge with the red, stringy buzz cut, and the other three left the cage.

During all this, there were two squirrels under the feeder, and the male looked like it was trying to have sex with the (presumably) female, who seemed completely unreceptive and resisted every time. After wrestling around for a few minutes, the female would break free, run, and stop about a foot away and begin to forage and eat as if nothing was happening. It was not at all a territorial battle, as I have seen plenty of those from my hammock, and this was clearly not that. The male began foraging as if nothing was happening, then it would get closer, pretending to be searching for seeds, and jump the female again! I saw about a dozen of these unsuccessful attempts, until he finally gave up.

I just went in to put on a sweatshirt, and my wife was laughing at me and said "Watching the squirrel porn channel, eh?"

About 15 feet to my right, we have a bird box nailed to our fence, and for the first time this year, we have these:

It isn't a very good picture, but I took it by holding my smartphone camera up to the eyepiece of my binoculars...it is almost impossible to do that, but I got one by luck...

I didn't know much about Bluebirds, but they are interesting birds! Besides being beautiful to the eye, they are extraordinarily territorial. When I am in my hammock, the male Bluebird watches me all the time. Never seems to take his eyes off me. My wife says he dive bombs her when she is gardening near the nest. Kind of like a Chickadee in boldness, but the size of a sparrow, maybe just a bit bigger.

The other day, I saw a squirrel running at full speed along the top of the fence, and about a foot above the squirrel and a foot behind, the male Bluebird was just gliding along after it, as if to escort it out of its defense zone!

They are fun. We now have a few Bluebird fledglings, and their parents seem to keep a close eye on them.

I miss my Bluejays. I used to have loads of them around, but my wife discourages me from putting out peanuts for them, because they just cannot resist them. Well, when I retire, I'll put out peanuts for them!

I saw a large brown bird fly into my yard and perch for about 30 seconds...it had the markings and color of a Northern Flicker, but it seemed way too big. It was bigger than a Crow, almost Raven size. It wasn't a predator, because the other birds paid no attention to it.

And now...the fireflies are out.

We have more this year than ever before. Before this year, I might rarely see as many as five, but last night I saw about twenty! They are just coming out now.

Hope it is as nice wherever you are as it is here for me!

[ifinnegan]

I’m hearing them sing and sing, call and whistle all the time hear in Southern California.

[Fireone]

At least a dozen or more Orioles hitting the grape jelly dish on my deck, all day long. Flashes of orange everywhere.
Lots of Bluebirds this year, and a pond full of baby Mallards, Wood Ducks, & geese.
Twin baby fawns appeared for the first time last evening. What a great time of year in E. Central, MN.

[LittleBillyInfidel]

My backyard is the Pike National Forest and we get those cool Downy Woodpeckers, too. Mostly, it’s the blue Stellars Jays and plenty of Hummingbirds. Your yard looks great!

[Macho MAGA Man]

Behind my house I saw today Blue Herons and a Kingfisher dive out of a cypress tree to catch a fish.

[maddog55]

I see bears, deer, turkey, coyotes on a regular basis and a bobcat and feral hog occasionally. Just picked up the gray for two weeks so probably won’t see any while they’re here 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

I do a good bit of birding. Nothing overly special today. Most interesting birds were a couple of Great Egrets and a couple of Willow Flycatchers. Since the first of May, the most interesting (at least for my area) were:

Snowy Egret
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Veery
Black-capped Chickadee
Black Tern
Canada Warbler
Dickcissel
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Prothonotary Warbler
Least Bittern
Sora
Warbling Vireo

[Hegemony Cricket]

Sitting on my front porch with the Mrs. Cricket, having a sweet cigar and watching the birds and rabbits here in central Indiana. Hummingbirds are having some amazing aerial battles and an intricate mating flight pattern. Assorted common bird songs provide a wonderful sound track to the sky slowly turning from blue to gray with splashes of pink as the sun goes down. Good times...

[rlmorel]

Nice-and your weather is probably better thamine-less humid, tad warmer, breezy.

[Prince of Space]

I’m in the AZ desert outside of Phoenix and I’ve recently gotten into feeding wild birds in my yard. I used the Merlin app to identify the birds around me based on their sounds. Apparently my neighborhood has doves (Mourning, Eurasian collared and white winged), boat tailed grackles, house sparrows, house finches, and Gambril’s quail.

We’ve also apparently been visited by a pair of ducks, which is odd. Since my recently deceased son raised ducks, we think it’s a sign from him, lol. They hang out in my daughter’s yard half a mile away from us and then show up randomly on our block too. Still scratching my head over that one.

[Lurker]

A flock of Sandhill Cranes flew over the house earlier.

L

[Kipp]

Our neighbors, a 95-year-old couple, live across the road from a marsh. Their front yard is riddled with gopher holes. A grey heron has been visiting the yard daily to pluck a gopher out of its hole (or at least to try). Swallows them hole. I’ve seen it a couple of times. I always assumed herons ate only fish, but learned they also eat snakes and small rodents.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Nice photos. Out here west of Tucson, I’m seeing quite a few Gambel’s quail with their young, plenty of mourning doves and ravens, and a few red-tailed hawks when I’m walking in the mornings. And the damned Gila woodpeckers, who drum on our metal chimney cap and drink all the sugar water out of the hummingbird feeders.

[packagingguy]

A peregrine falcon flew by a minute ago. It’s getting dark so it’s probably time to go back to the nest.

[bigbob]

Was out paddling in the kayak this afternoon and saw Great Blue Herons, but the real treat was several passes by a Bald Eagle, hunting for his lunch - and on one pass, he found it!

[MomwithHope]

Lots of northern orioles here and a couple pairs of orchard orioles. All have fledgling out of the nest. Robins nesting under our barn eaves on their second clutch. We stop putting out seed so the seed eaters can fend for themselves. Otherwise it is very overcrowded. The insect eaters are more shy and we enjoy them at the jelly, in the birdbath, or getting bugs out of the vegetable garden.

[FreeReign]

Robins nesting under our barn eaves on their second clutch.

For the past several weeks I've had a leucistic Robin hanging around my back yard. A leucistic Robin is a Robin that has white feathers lacking melanin instead of dark feather.

A leucistic Robin looks like the following...

It's my understanding that only 1 out of 30,000 Robins has such coloring.

[MomwithHope]

Beautiful!

[netguide]

Saw a trumpeter swan here on a small lake here in SE Missouri. They are sometimes seen on the Mississippi River which is about 25 miles from here. As the crow flies!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

RL. Nice back yard, nice setting!

In the day Red Tail Hawks regularly patrol overhead. A pair had a nest in a white pine about a block away I could see from my front steps.
Not certain if it was a house finch or a purple finch, but a pair had a nest in my Riverside Spruce. I could watch it out my bedroom window. Robins, sparrows, downy woodpeckers, mourning doves, cardinals and blue jays are what I see most this time of year.

I found Japanese beetles on my plum trees. Went to spray with some lite red cedar and eucalyptus oil to see if it would discourage them. Noticed that I had a different bug all over the leaves. They turned out to be ladybug larvae feeding on aphids on the leaves. (Did not spray them.)

Its twilight and early evening and the fireflies have come out in the back yard. (Good night!)