Big birds, little birds, unidentified birds....

This past week brought a variety of birds.One of the young herons came to our pond again. It always stands there looking lost. It sat with its mouth open like this and you could see the sides of its neck vibrate, but neither Mike or I could hear any sound coming from it. Don't know what it was doing.
It stood on our property for awhile and then went over to a neighbors and stood on their dock and walked around in their yard. Later it was gone.

We also had a lot of "little bird" activity....Hummingbirds.

This feeder hangs from the tree we were sitting under right in front of the swing....making a great place to take photos!

Ruby Throated Hummingbirds never seem to want to share. There was a great deal of buzzing around and chasing each other.

You can see the tip of the tongue here.

The other feeder up by the house was a place to get what I call "humming blurs".

This is the only shot of a male so far this year....see the red throat! I think it is strange that the wings look like squares :-)

You catch them in so many different positions as you snap away.

Looks like it is flying backwards....maybe it was!

About to give chase, I believe.

Then there were the unidentified ducks we saw early one morning while checking on the eagle's nest.

My photos aren't very helpful for identifying them.

In this one I can see a white patch around the eye. Female Wood duck?

The bill seems a different shape than on Mallards.

Bringing Up Baby......

Say "Hello" to Baby Wren!I saw this little head peeking out yesterday while watching the parents bring food.
"Bring more food!!"

" .....After I take a quick nap."
Both parents were in and out about every 5 minutes. Sometimes they arrived about the same time.

So.....what do baby wrens eat???

A nice juicy reddish worm like thing.

A tiny little worm thing

My favorite....a cricket, perhaps? If you click on it you can see the long antennae.

Bug of some sort.

Maybe a lightening bug? or bee?

No idea...bug.

Lightening bug?

Certainly interesting! Just wish the light was better. This area is very shady.

My gourd may not make it through another season....I can see two additional holes above the main hole. But it has certainly done well this year! A successful batch of Chickadees in the spring and now a successful House Wren baby. (babies?)

A Swing with a View....

Our weather this past weekend was so mild....not typical...that I spent a lot of time in the swing in the front yard watching the bird activity. I intended to read, but there was so much going on, that my camera was in my hands constantly. A rather "messy" view on its own, but the birds make up for the view.
This was a typical shot, if not a good one....one bird taking off at top left, another at the suet eating, and a Titmouse zooming in to the green top feeder.

Another hodgepodge......a Hairy Woodpecker far left, Downy woodpecker next to it, a young House Sparrow on the limb, while 2 Goldfinches ignore everyone else.

In the middle of all the other bird activity, there were 4 hummingbirds zooming around trying to claim the two feeders as theirs or sitting on the vine like this one!

The hummer checked out the Black-eyed Susans, too.

A young Cardinal on the squirrel feeder.

I never realized that so much happened on the garage roof. Here 2 doves are enjoying the high perch.

Then this pack of young sparrows came along to chase them away. Maybe the heat in the shingles was attractive on this cool late afternoon.

The driveway was equally busy. This young Chipping Sparrow was looking for seeds. One of my cats was lying there watching it. The Chipping Sparrows seem to be either very brave or very foolhardy....totally ignoring the cats.

An odd angle for this White-Breasted Nuthatch which was in the tree right over my head!

Looks like a Song Sparrow in the tray feeder.

Titmouse on top waiting to drop down and join the finch.

House Finch on the bird bath getting a drink.

A "flurry of finches" on the green tray.

Can you see the Goldfinch in the flowers? They love the seeds.

I can see the gourd from the swing and one of the House Wrens likes to sit with his/her beak sticking out. Is this a way to keep anyone else from getting in? Looking for the mate to return?

One of the wrens came regularly with morsels. Sometimes he sits on the rim of the basketball goal first and would shake his wings like a young bird does. They he would fly in the hole.

Even the butterflies kept flitting through the yard and over the house. This Tiger Swallowtail stopped in the garden for a couple of minutes, but mostly they just flew on by.

I really didn't realize there was so much going on out there. I'll have to sit in the swing more often. However, if I try to read or sew, I get distracted by all these birds!

Squirrel Sunday....."NKOB" in training

Well, the "New Kid On the Block" has apparently been taking lessons from "the Star" on how to raid the bird feeders.

"Hmmm.....wonder what's up here?"

Mike caught these shots of him climbing into the tray one afternoon.
"WOW, I hit the mother-lode of sunflower seeds here!"

"It was sure worth the climb!"

"ymmm.." (That's : "Don't bother me I'm eating" in squirrel talk)

Butterfly attraction....

Question: How do you take photos of butterflies, if the subjects decide they would rather.............sit on your hand???? Thursday I couldn't catch a butterfly, and Friday they were catching me.
Perhaps it was my fragrance...."Eau de Sweat"?

I thought it was funny when I got home to read in my butterfly book that they will hang out "on very quiet people"....among other places :-) At one time I had one sitting on the end of the finger that I use to push the camera button with. Hmmmmmm....didn't want his photo taken??

We went back to the "butterfly road" because we thought we might see that striped butterfly I saw Thursday and didn't get a photo......
....sure enough! A Zebra Swallowtail. I was excited!

A back view showing the red spots.

I couldn't get over how long those tails are! Wow!

There were dozens of black butterflies around. I even brought home a dead one that I found.

These 2 were circling each other.

A strange behavior below......

There was a dead black butterfly on the ground and this yellow Tiger landed near it and started approaching it.

It got real close and circled all around it.

Climbed over the top of it. I couldn't decide what exactly it was doing. Has anyone ever seen a butterfly act like this with a dead one?

We saw a bunch of those Ebony Jewelwing damselflies.

I'm still trying to figure them out. The one at the bottom is the metallic green that I saw once before, but the one at the top is a dull bluish color. Male and female??

This is the dull one with the white spots on the wings.

This butterfly kept teasing me with a hint of its inside color...that bit of red and blue....but wouldn't open up for me.

Great day! I don't often get to hold butterflies on my hand....and on my t-shirt, and in my hair, and on my pants leg, and ....... Glad Mike was there to take photos!