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Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,330 posts, read 54,400,252 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NVplumber
Kestrels are red white and black and Merlins are goldish brown and also bigger with sharper wingtips. I'm gonna get out this weekend and check out what's going on in the undeveloped areas near me here. See what critters are about. There's an owl hanging about in the complex here making the pigeons nervous. More power to him.
It' a barn owl. They like pigeon on the menu and we have plenty. To plenty. Mess making nasty azz birds. Need more raptors discovering this place.
Color/marking wise it seemed to match the Merlin images I found, didn't really get to see the wingtips as I would in soaring flight as it just lifted off with its prey and was out of sight very quickly, I had no chance to even attempt grabbing a camera.
And, it seems the warblers have arrived a bit early. Most of them fly too fast to identify.
Maybe not. This time of year that "Woody Woodpecker" drumming is usually a territorial drum and has nothing to do with eating. They'll drum on gutters or trees or anything else that will make a lot of noise.
But that depends on a lot of things. Maybe they ARE eating your house - or at least the bugs in it.
Oh boy. Things are hopping in Southern CT. (literally) Outside last evening we could hear the squirrels making their "alarm call" so we looked around to see what was up and there was a fox under the bird feeder repeatedly hopping into the air trying to land on (and "land") a chipmunk for supper. Chipmunk was too fast and scurried away under leaves and into burrow. Fox then sauntered up the hill to see if a turkey could be captured (while tom turkey was distractedly showing off his bright blue head and all his tail feathers (in a big wheel) for his harem of hens) No luck for the fox there, either.
Also, two evenings ago, we watched a usually very reclusive pileated woodpecker scooping up a literal feast of bugs while in our compost barrel! We had never seen that before.. he/she usually drills for bugs in a nearby dead tree; perhaps he/she noticed the bugs flying around the compost barrel. (Behavioral adjustments to make things easier? Survival of the fittest/smartest?) He/she came up for air several times, peeking out over the top of the barrel with a truly dinosaur-like head to keep an eye on us but didn't seem to bothered by our presence about 30 feet away.. usually, pileateds will go so far as to keep to the other side of the tree every time we are in the vicinity, so this was truly brazen behavior.
They like the brook and moist woods behind the house and on warm humid summer evenings, we can actually follow them (with our ears) as they move up or down the edge of the brook, probably eating bugs.
ETA- We saw Red breasted grosbeaks here (New Haven County, CT) for the first time this year May 2. And as I posted earlier, the ruby throat hummers on 4/29. And we saw an indigo bunting at the feeder twice May 1 and May 2, both times in the early morning.
Last edited by LilyMae521; 05-05-2019 at 11:58 AM..
We went on a eco-stroll through a scrub preserve last week lead by an educator from a local university. We saw a bald eagle nest in slash pines that was huge. While we were looking at that, three swallow-tailed kites soared overhead. I had never seen one before. I was so in awe I didn’t think to get a picture.
Back at home, I have a cardinal on her nest in a dwarf powder bush by our kitchen window. I can watch as I’m doing the dishes. The nest is twigs and Spanish moss. I realize the females are so drab in coloring because it’s great camouflage. Look for her orange beak in the photo.
Put up the hummer feeder a couple days ago. I felt like I had seen them darting past my window, I knew they must be around. Saw one on the feeder tonight. Boy was he thirsty!!
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,330 posts, read 54,400,252 times
Reputation: 40736
Quote:
Originally Posted by VTsnowbird
Put up the hummer feeder a couple days ago. I felt like I had seen them darting past my window, I knew they must be around. Saw one on the feeder tonight. Boy was he thirsty!!
It's funny, years ago I was on a motorcycle ride near the Delaware water gap and stopped for lunch at a little cafe out in the country. Waiting for my burger I was looking at the feeder right outside my window wondering if they really attracted hummers. In what couldn't have been scripted/directed any better, no sooner did the thought cross my mind than a ruby throated hummer appeared at the feeder.
We could see there were some eggs in the nest, but we did not want to take a closer look and disturb the birds, so we do not know how many there were. But we know one egg was rolled out of the nest (probably no live bird in it). Our neighbor also reported seeing a crow stealing one of our eggs. I do not know why the crow did not come back. Then we found one of the very young birds dead below the nest. At the end there was only one young bird that left the nest. It was interesting watching it learning to fly, and it could move along our area of grass using it's wings, so I was hoping it would fly in a few days time.
Today it was attacked by two magpies. The parent blackbirds were attacking the magpies with all they had, and the young bird was also fighting back and trying to fly to safety. After about two minutes it broke free, but one magpie was faster and flew onto the young birds back. After a few blows to the head, I could see the young one going. Then the magpies flew through the trees with the body.
We could see there were some eggs in the nest, but we did not want to take a closer look and disturb the birds, so we do not know how many there were. But we know one egg was rolled out of the nest (probably no live bird in it). Our neighbor also reported seeing a crow stealing one of our eggs. I do not know why the crow did not come back. Then we found one of the very young birds dead below the nest. At the end there was only one young bird that left the nest. It was interesting watching it learning to fly, and it could move along our area of grass using it's wings, so I was hoping it would fly in a few days time.
Today it was attacked by two magpies. The parent blackbirds were attacking the magpies with all they had, and the young bird was also fighting back and trying to fly to safety. After about two minutes it broke free, but one magpie was faster and flew onto the young birds back. After a few blows to the head, I could see the young one going. Then the magpies flew through the trees with the body.
Damn, that must have been difficult to watch. A reminder that nature isn't exactly as Disney portrays.
Damn, that must have been difficult to watch. A reminder that nature isn't exactly as Disney portrays.
I had to stop myself trying to help, because I did not want to scare the parents away. But to be fair, if these were the same two magpies, they had their nest plundered by 2 buzzards earlier this year.
We once heard a cacophany of squawks in our (former) back yard. Several fluffball robin babies had landed on the grass and the mom was trying to rouse them to fly away from the crow that had perched on a post, waiting for an easy meal. When one fluffball failed to leave, the crow swooped in, plucked up the fluffball, and according to my husband watching from a different window, “shredded the baby.”
I like both robins and crows. Hard as it was to see the baby taken, neither species is in short supply. According to a birder friend who heard about the above, if we “saved” the robins, we would later have “wall to wall robins.”
That said, when a dazed and exhausted fledgeling robin later landed on our second-floor deck and didn’t move away after a few hours, I lined a box with paper towels, put in a couple of cherries picked off a nearby tree, and placed a milk crate upside down over it to keep the crows from “shooting fish in a barrel.” Then we gave the baby to a certified bird rescue organization. They returned a few weeks later to release it and a couple of other robin rescues in our neighborhood, which was known to be a favorite “robinhood.”
Still slightly later, I found a young male robin sitting on a power line and peering straight into a window where crows often came to look for me. As soon as I saw him, I went to say hello, upon which point a crow instantly rushed over and chased away the robin. No other birds had ever occupied that space before, and although the crows resumed looking for me, no robin ever sat there again. I asked an animal expert if robins recognize faces like crows do. She said, Oh, yes, they do and it probably came there shortly after release because it remembered me.
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