Birds

[digitS']

Looking back on what I wrote, it was rabbit remains on the barn floor. And yet, I have seen the mother owl sit and watch as a rabbit hopped through almost the entire length of the garden. Daylight and maybe just not hungry.

We have Ferruginous Hawks but it is difficult to imagine how they are able to tolerate the continuous suburban sprawl. Those hawks don't even seem to want to fly over houses.

No marmots this year. I don't know why. When the retired military guy lived on the other side of the fence, the marmots were plentiful but I would find arrows in the garden. He has been gone for several years.

Bird populations rise and fall and rise again. I hope more species can tolerate the changes we make in their environments. Populations that arrived with us will likely stabilize, I suppose.

Steve

 

[R2elk]

I have never seen the owls that hang around here bother anything during the day. Twilight and night is an entirely different story.

 

[AMKuska]

He wanted in the chicken coop.

 

[digitS']

What do you think ..

. a Sharp-shinned or a Cooper?

Since it was trying to get into the coop, do you think that we had better go with the Cooper? I knew a guy with a pigeon loft. He caught a hawk inside and carried it off to someone that he thought of as an authority. The ID was for a Lofter ... No No, I meant a Sharp-shinned! Thankfully, there's no Lofter but I have never been able to be comfortable calling any that I have seen here a Cooper.

Steve

 

[AMKuska]

I believe it's a juvenile Cooper's hawk. The heads a bit too small on a sharp-shinned hawk to make it likely.

 

[digitS']

Look at that fierce determination in those eyes ...

I'm trying to remember what I guessed last year about the tiny bird that was in the hydrangea.

The House Sparrows are taking a break from my immediate neighborhood. They aren't all gone but the new family across the fence must not be feeding them. The nextdoor neighbor hasn't fed them since she moved in about 16 months ago. Their favorite little spruce thicket is still there but - thankfully - there are just a few making use of it .

Then ... Two tiny little brown birds showed up from under the rhubarb in my backyard. They may have been visiting the frog that we found there last week . Anyway, I barely had a glimpse of one of them but the other was working his/her way off to hide behind a dahlia and I had a good 20 seconds.

Back in the days when there wasn't so much millet seed and birdhouses in the immediate neighborhood, there were visitors like Brown Creepers & House Finches. The House Finches will only show up on the power lines these days. Chickadees and Song Sparrows are seldom here. I know that the House Sparrows with actively fly towards the Finches and the Song Sparrows. The Finches especially seem intimidated. Oregon Juncos will be here in winter and ignore the Sparrows but when there are 20 or more, defending their feeding stations, roosting and nesting sites - this becomes quite a bit less hospitable for some of these tiny birds, I'm sure.

The little guys this week may have been Vireos or Kinglets. Ruby-crowned Kinglets used to be quite common where I lived in the pine forest. Immature or Fall plumage would be hard to identify. Distinctly marked or dull, melodious or not - they are welcome in my yard .

Steve

 

[digitS']

House Sparrows are taking a break from my immediate neighborhood.

They are back. Probably not as many and maybe the flock was just vacationing in a somewhat distant area. Haven't checked to see if the neighbor's feeder is charged.

Funny how birds come and go, although I hadn't noticed it with the sparrows. The robins are around early and then "vacation" in the mountains beginning in late summer.

I noted the starlings disappearing one winter. Of course, many birds migrate but, I suppose that it may be only a few miles. Here's something I noticed about the starlings when our high temperatures went off the charts in late June, the starlings disappeared from both the home neighborhood and at the distant garden. I saw none for about a week. Maybe they were just down on the river, cooling off.

Those guys came right back. Two just shot out of the tree across the road and a spit second later a hawk zoomed past .. .... He didn't even bother to follow or to stop. Just lowered his trajectory and dodged through another tree and over the schoolhouse roof!

Steve

 

[digitS']

 

[flowerbug]

it is birdy season again for sure and i'm enjoying it more than usual.

today the brown thrasher was out front flipping things around looking for some chow. i didn't know that they had so much variation in their singing as they do.

i always think of them as cinnamon birds from their color.

 

[Alasgun]

I’ll be glad when the Robins are gone, the first one showed up yesterday!!
i can protect the strawberries but it’s the worms i worry about.