Today I Saw (Birds Including Raptors & Hummers) ~ 2014

[Viceroy]

This guy/gal has been spending some time in my yard. Eating what looked to be snake but not in the shot unfortunately.

[linrose]

Majestic!

Today I saw a turkey mom with her poults. They look to be brand new, so cute!

[Arey]

When I got home from shopping this afternoon there was a group of Laughing Gulls squabbling over some scrap of food. (Parenthetically speaking there are few things more aggravating this time of year than being downwind from neighbors who put their trash out any old way on trash pick up day.) Then two fish crows arrived and started forcing the Laughing Gulls away from the food. At this point two mocking birds erupted from a nearby tree and went after the crows, and a Red Winged Blackbird joined in the fracas. The gulls left, the crows left , the blackbird left and one mocking bird went back to the tree while the other perched on a telephone wire. The food was also gone but I don't know who got it. In the meantime, a Grackle has been bringing its fledglings to my back yard, and the resident the Song Sparrows haven't had a minutes rest since the Grackles showed up last week. I hope the Sparrows aren't going to all this trouble to protect a Cow Bird Fledgling.

[Birding Bunch]

Sadly, what I saw today were young birds blown out of their nests too early. One was a Robin, so I didn't fret too much as we've seen early birds out of the nest and the parents still tend to them and lead them to safety for the night. The other birds were baby Orchard Orioles. One didn't make it because it must've fallen in the rushing water going through our south yard. One son found it along the ditch a ways from the others.

I called a rehabber about the other two, telling her they were soaking wet, mostly filled in with feathers, eyes open, no tail feathers yet and can barely flutter about when we tried catching them. The parents are very much around. She said in cases like this, her greatest concern is that they'd get cold and yeah, they started poofing the last time I saw them. They are somewhere in the trees now out of sight. I will look around for them one more time before night and if they are poofy and catch-able, we'll bring them in to warm up by placing them on a heating pad. I'd like to do only one at a time.

I read a case of people taking birds in to help them with mites and the parent birds ended up not returning to them when the young finally were brought back out in a makeshift nest. On a website for Tree Swallows, they say if you have to feed the babies because the weather is bad or something happened to one of the parents, you are to take only one bird out of the nest at a time, so the parent/s can continue feeding the others. Otherwise, they'd think a predator got all their young and will abandon their efforts.

[gymell]

Today in the yard I saw a great egret flying over the house, a turkey vulture, and a male ruby-throated hummingbird in the garden. Also our house wrens fledged this morning and the parents were scolding me as I worked out in the garden. We have many juvenile woodpeckers of various species coming to the feeders (mostly downy and hairy.) Oh and some juvenile crows that must have recently fledged nearby.

[Rebek56]

Adolescent house finch. These little guys crack me up--I love their "eyebrows."

[linrose]

I've never seen those eyebrows before, very comical!

Our goldfinches have been coming to the volunteer sunflowers growing in a pot on the deck just outside the sunroom window. I had the camera on the table so I snapped this through the glass. They balance on the leaves and stems and turn upside down to get at the seeds which aren't even ripe yet. Usually two or three of them at a time will come visit.

[Kildale]

Had 4 flickers yesterday, one was feeding a youngster.

[EllenW]

That must be fun to watch linrose. Lucky you to have all those flickers Kildale. I have only seen them here a few times in 15 years.

[turttle]

Amazing hawk photo! And I only get an occasional Flicker in the winter. I didn't realize they went that far north to breed - what a cool thing to watch!

Linrose, have never seen eyebrows like that on my finches. Is it a short lived adolescent thing, a function of molting, or what? It looks pretty comical.