As the month of May passes rapidly by, I hope, as you probably do, that its’ horribly variable weather will settle down to more of a summer variety than what we have been getting this week. Our sympathetic thoughts went out to those of you who were participating in last weekend’s Buskerfest. There were a few sad looking, soaking wet birds hanging about our place on that day who didn’t seem to be enjoying it either. Followed up, for the past couple of days, with temperatures that are are a bit “nippy around the knee caps”, for those of us who have prematurely taken to wearing our summer shorts, it hasn’t been too jolly a week at all!!
(I know it serves me right for jumping the gun!!)
Anyway, enough doom and gloom and on with some good stuff!
We got another very brief sighting of the Brown Thrashers that I had high lighted in my last article and the Bluebirds have been very busy looking after their brood in one of our nesting boxes, although we have yet to see a really good sign that the chicks are actually there, i.e. no heads popping out of the box entrance hole begging for food. The odd time though, we have spotted a Bluebird a little dumpier and not so mature looking as their more colourful parents do.
Our nesting Robin, above one of my garage doors, was also able to get her brood out of the nest without us being able to witness the event, as we have been able to in past years.
We just hope that the young had matured enough to fly and that they haven’t become a victim of something more sinister! Nothing untoward points to such a happening so we’ll keep with the positive thoughts. At least one pair of Robins are definitely still with us, as they feed either on the front grass or that in the rear of the house. They also give us plenty of entertainment, when they take to the water bath for a quick dip! Surprisingly, they haven’t been alone in this sort of activity recently as Cowbirds, Chipping and White-throated Sparrows have been observed doing the same! We even saw a Bluebird partaking too, which is quite a rare sight for us. Maybe you have been able to witness some of this sort of thing going on in your own backyard,- I hope so. Stay safe and well.
Cheers,
John Baldwin
