Spring birds

[CathyA]

What a fantastic birding spring this has been! What a sad world this would be without them!

Yellow-rumped warbler
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/Yellow-rumpedwarbler_zpsc0f66400.jpg



Yellow warbler

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4716yellowwarbler_zps066b9e90.jpg


common yellowthroat
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4944commonyellowthroatcropped_zps62884653.jpg


male towhee
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/MaleTowhee_zpsb451aa13.jpg

male Baltimore oriole
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4708Orioleatfeeder-2_zpsf8c62ccd.jpg

And the jewel I saw this morning

male scarlet tanager
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4969_zpsd6596a8d.jpg

[catherine]

Fantastic pictures! I don't know how you do it! I don't seem to see such a variety where I live, but I'm pretty sure there here. I'm just not as good as you are at looking.

I love how the Baltimore Oriole matches his "dining room." The color of the feeder sets off the black markings so nicely. And the scarlet tanager is amazing. And you caught the warbler warbling!

[razz]

Lovely! Thanks for posting.

[new2oregon]

Thanks for posting more birds, they are great !

[mtnlaurel]

Cathy, I so enjoy your photos. Thank you!

[Kestra]

Beautiful.

[Jilly]

I saw my first baby robins today. A nest on the backyard light fixture at my daughter's and another in one of the gutters on the old house next door when I got home and was reading on the porch.

I saw my first red-winged blackbird on the way home. Add in the sparrows and ordinary finches, toss in the ever present pigeons and sea gulls and that is all the birds we have here. At least that I see.

So, I am always sooo happy to see your photos.

[KayLR]

Beautiful! Wish I had a camera with a long lens. We don't get the scarlet tanagers here, but the Western ones (yellow) are here now for a short time.

[Gardenarian]

Thank for the pictures Cathy! They brighten my working day :)

[CathyA]

Seems like I only see the scarlet tanagers once or twice in the spring and then they are gone.
Jilly........the redwing blackbirds "own" our field in the summer. They are interesting/very vocal birds that nest very low to the ground.
Here's a pic of a male and then a pic of the female.
I've heard that the males that have the bigger patch of red on their shoulders are higher up in the "pecking order".

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4855_zps9da2d5a7.jpg

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4844Femaleredwingblackbird_zpsb0f87d4c.jpg

[CathyA]

I hung up an old basket on the front porch, hoping the birds would use it. Usually, Carolina wrens use it. But this year, its chickadees!

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4920_zpsed3e3f22.jpg

[frugal-one]

We have a colorful back yard as well. Right now there are Baltimore Orioles, grosbeaks, hummingbirds, indigo buntings and goldfinches. A riot of color. So COOOOL to see. We don't usually have such a variety. Indigo buntings are a rare sight.

[CathyA]

Sounds good frugal-one! I think this is the best spring ever for having so many birds around.
Haven't seen a grosbeak yet this year. The hummers showed up last week. I finally could catch up with the red-eyed vireo this morning, to take a pic of it. It's funny how some birds can be so vocal, yet you just can't see them!
The bluebirds seem to be extra blue this spring too. All the birds are so different, and wonderful!

[peggy]

I love to sit on the dock and listen to the red wing blackbirds. Their call just says summer to me. The green herons and kingfisher are back. I've seen the grey heron a few times but not so much in the past week or so. Probably nesting. The geese had built a nest and I think laid eggs when a fire swept through the woods by the fen and drove them out. (damn near drove us out too!) I've seen them hanging out, but I don't think they will lay another clutch. I think the fire just totally did them in for the season.

[CathyA]

I was wondering how the drought you had there was doing Peggy. Is it better now? What was the fire about? Did you lose alot of woods?

I had a female mallard duck laying on eggs in the front yard, near a tree that had a bunch of broken branches around it on the ground. I thought it was in a pretty dangerous place, and sure enough.....the other day I noticed the nest of eggs was all messed up and there were broken eggs around. In fact, one day I came home and saw a squirrel eating on an egg. We have alot of coons too though. I'm glad it all happened before the eggs were very far along, and I didn't have to see ducklings getting killed.
Here's a pic of the mother on the nest. I hope she finds a safer site the next time. I don't think I was too close. I was using a telephoto lens.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4905_zps4cc429bd.jpg

[peggy]

I was wondering how the drought you had there was doing Peggy. Is it better now? What was the fire about? Did you lose alot of woods?

I had a female mallard duck laying on eggs in the front yard, near a tree that had a bunch of broken branches around it on the ground. I thought it was in a pretty dangerous place, and sure enough.....the other day I noticed the nest of eggs was all messed up and there were broken eggs around. In fact, one day I came home and saw a squirrel eating on an egg. We have alot of coons too though. I'm glad it all happened before the eggs were very far along, and I didn't have to see ducklings getting killed.
Here's a pic of the mother on the nest. I hope she finds a safer site the next time. I don't think I was too close. I was using a telephoto lens.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_4905_zps4cc429bd.jpg

I'm pretty sure we have recovered from the drought although they keep saying on the weather news that we are 'down' by an inch or so. Our ponds are back to level and I think we have had plenty rain so far. I didn't lose anything from the drought (probably cause I was out there everyday watering my baby trees) but this last hard winter did kill my persimmon. Most of my roses also had quite a bit of die back, but pruning took care of that and they are coming on like gang busters. Oh, and I also lost 2 crepe myrtle and 2 figs, but we are kind of on the ragged edge of zoning for them anyway, so a week of minus 10 was certain to kill them. The pears and apple didn't mind the cold one bit and from the flowering this spring we will have a banner year! So far the fish in the front pond seem to be all accounted for (I'm talking about my pets, koi. The bass always survive) but that pond is deep and if it were to freeze even close to solid we are all in trouble! Not sure about the shallow back fen. I've seen splashes and such but how many goldfish survived I'm not sure. I might put a few hundred in just to be sure. My son is coming for a visit in a few weeks to help us build a pergola and I'll wait until then as he gets a kick out of that sort of thing.

The fire was something else! I was upstairs laying down and husband was in his man cave watching some sport when my daughter, who was working on the computer said look at all the smoke in the backyard. I could see it was coming from the woods next to our property so I went into a bedroom that faced that way to look. It's a small strip of woods maybe a few hundred feet thick with a pasture and hill on the other side that stretches to the next road a little over a 1/4 mile away. While I was watching here came the fire racing over the hill, across the pasture and into the woods. It came so fast it was amazing. To be honest my first thought was bae of all people, with his fire fighting and all. LOL As the fire came rushing towards us here comes a firetruck up our driveway followed by one of our neighbors.
Truthfully if it wasn't so scary it would have been awesome! Our house sits closest to the property line here and the firefighters fanned out along the line and stood their ground. I was so impressed. They used water and leaf blowers! Thankfully the trees don't come right up to the house and we have a buffer of lawn. Still, it was scary. Especially when one tree went whoosh up in flames, just like you see on tv. Of course it was a very windy day, which didn't help matters much. What had happened was a truck caught fire on the road over the hill and set the pasture on fire. It's truly unbelievable how fast this fire came rushing over the hill and into the woods.

I learned a few things from this fire. one, it is good to have a buffer of lawn when you live near/in woods. Fire moves incredibly fast, you could never outrun it if you had to. Eastern red cedar are really pretty wimpy trees. The only ones permanently damaged were these. One completely killed I think and the others killed up to about 15-20 feet. I thing those will survive, but limbed up, so to speak. Unfortunately this woodland border was mostly cedar with some shagbark hickory mixed in. Actually I don't mind as now I can see pretty far into the woods even though spring has sprung.
Another thing I learned is that firefighters seem pretty casual as to what they leave still burning. I realize it was a windy, fire filled day for them, but it still made us nervous they left so much still burning. As night fell I stepped out on the deck and it seemed a dozen campfires surrounded us. We did call them back as one large dead tree was completely glowing from base to top, about 30 feet tall. As we stepped into the woods to check it out, it came crashing down sending sparks and flaming chunks everywhere. We helped the firefighters put out what we could, but again they left with stuff still burning. We cobbled a few hoses together, stretched them to the edge of the woods and didn't sleep a wink all night!
ON the other hand, the pasture and forest floor have never been so green! ;)

So that's our excitement. No huge loss, just scary.

[Florence]

Love the photos! We too are having a good bird spring. We have had nests of barn swallows on both the front and back porches with a total of 8 babies fledged so far. There is another nest with 4 more on the front porch and they look ready for flight in about another week. And we have more hummingbirds at our feeder than we have ever had in the 10 years we have lived here. Love the birds! (But not so much the baby bird poop on the porch under the swallow nests....)

[CathyA]

Wow Peggy! You are lucky to still have your house! Even though fires are so destructive, I've heard that they let the native stuff grow up again, so maybe you'll have an even more diverse/native woods.

When we first moved here, there weren't any trees around the house, but I worked hard to plant them. Now I'm concerned about not having a buffer zone......but I sure don't want to get rid of those trees.

We had a really hard/long winter, but it's amazing how everything is doing. I'm seeing millions of tree seedlings popping up everywhere........more than ever before.
Makes me wonder if hard winters are necessary for growth.....like "stratification"......meaning many seeds need periods of cold, in order to sprout. We haven't had a winter like this for a long time.

I'm glad to hear that your drought is over and that the fire didn't destroy too much. Seems like such wide variations in weather these days. I hope floods aren't next!
I've seen northern water snakes in my little watergarden, and I'm hearing tree frogs. I hope your pond and fen do well...........They can give us so much pleasure!

Florence........do you find the barn swallows to be pretty aggressive when they're nesting? When I was young, there was a nest of barn swallows on the porch and the birds would dive at us all the time. Haha about the bird poop. We used to have an elderberry bush close to our deck and at times, the deck was covered in purple poop.