Whilst our House Wren struggles valiantly on, feeding its still house-bound new brood, the neighbourhood has the privilege of seeing some of the other birds’ older teenage offspring! What a lovely sight they are too in their slightly ruffled, but still very attractive, colorful feathers. The young Eastern King Bird spent quite a long time cleaning and grooming itself on one of my nesting boxes, allowing me to get many photographic shots of it. There was no sign of protective parents being anywhere in sight, so the youngster was very much alone, as I suppose it will be now for the rest of its life, or until it mates up with another bird, to start the life cycle again.
The Female Cardinal was far from being as shy as its parents tend to be whenever they visit us, and once again, it stayed for a long time ground feeding, to let us get a super view of its colorful plumage and also see its crest, which it had no trouble in proudly displaying!
These teenagers are not the only ones to put in an appearance, as our
bird numbers have increased quite significantly, as other parents bring in their own families to either feed, or splash in the bird bath! As I write this I am thinking of the Grackles in particular, in their slim, new shiny feathered attire taking dips in the water and also having a general splash around. At one session, there were 4 of them on the edge of the bath at once! The grown up pair of brightly colored Rock Pigeons, on the other hand, took a more sophisticated approach and dabbled their beautiful pink feet daintily in the water and snuggled up to each other whilst doing so! Maybe a new romance in the air!? Even a couple of Crows sat on the side of the bath too, but they weren’t quite so romantically inclined as the Rock Pigeons were! Did you expect them to be!?
The other day, I decided to count how many different birds I could see from our front window and was able to almost instantaneously see a total of 7: A Red Breasted Nuthatch, Grackle, Goldfinch, Chipping Sparrow, Redwing Blackbird, Crow, and Blue Jay, so not too bad, and that was without really trying! I hope that you too are managing to get to see all the birds that come to visit you on a daily basis and enjoy their very presence for yourself. Stay safe and well,
Cheers,
John Baldwin
