I couldn’t find the nest this little guy came out of so I moved him a couple feet into the brush where the dogs are less likely to spot him.
Then a while later this guy soared over. I had an instant of HOLY COW GIANT CROW, wait, thats not a crow…..
In molt, hence the notches in his wings
I actually thought this was another Osprey, and was taking the pictures to try to figure out why his wings looked weird. Wasn’t till I was looking at the pictures later that I realized that wasn’t an Osprey…..dammit, now I’m going to be taking pictures of every “Osprey” I see…..
Huge bunches of them, perched on every surface waiting their turn at the finch feeder. I’m refilling that feeder once a day…..they’re such secure little birds that even me stepping out onto the porch to get this picture (instead of through the dirty window and screen) didn’t even phase them.
And the male Rose-breasted Grosbeak brought along his mate yesterday
And I still can’t get over how different the female Red-wing blackbirds look from the males
Not much else going on here other than the birds. We’re supposed to be getting a frost tonight (and come with in a degree or two of it last night, though I haven’t confirmed if it did or not). So all the garden containers got frost protectors last night, and considering the lack of warmth predicted for today I’m not going to remove them, just loosen them for some ventilation. I just hope the various fruit trees, which are all in bloom, can hold up cause I can’t do much about them.
And a Hairy Woodpecker visited the suet:
and yes I’m sure its a Hairy, cause here’s a Downy on the same feeder:
And there were several White Crowned Sparrows around the feeders:
I’d never seen one before! They supposedly nest in this area, and there’s been a male (no way to tell if its the same one though I think so) back to the feeders several times yesterday and this morning, so I’m hoping that means that he’s looking to nest here. I’ve not spotted a female yet, but from the pictures online she’d look like a large sparrow so I might have just missed her…..
And a gratuitous BlueJay, just because:
Yesterday Husband and I were enjoying the lovely sunny warmth and doing all kinds of yard work, when suddenly I heard a WHOOSH of wings over my head, and looked up in time to see a pair of very large birds of prey swoop by. I ran for my camera and managed to catch these:
I posted the pictures on a birding forum to see if anyone had any ideas, and was informed that they are Osprey. The first ones I’ve ever seen outside of a captive program!
Cause its been a while
I’ve been bad about posting the photos from the trail cameras lately, but to be honest they’ve not been overly interesting. I put out a feed block in an attempt to attract in the deer and turkeys, and instead distracted the regular birds from my feeders. This means 100+ photos a week of chickadees and cardinals…..till yesterday when I checked the cameras and found this following set of photos:
The general concensus on the birder forum I posted the pics to is that this is probably a Coopers Hawk, though there was enough question that it MIGHT be a large Sharpshinned. Made my day though!