Monday, May 25, 2015

The Goldfinch Gang

Recently the goldfinches found the feeders. When they come, it's usually in a big group of about six (three males and three females). 


Monday, May 18, 2015

Sugar High

A pair of tiny hummingbirds buzzed around our flowering bush (a rhododendron, I think) tonight. The male stopped by first and a few minutes after he left the female showed up. I'm happy to have caught a few photos- they move so quickly!




Dear Robin

Dear Robin,

Oh, sweet bird, how exciting it was to come home from a weekend away to find your perfect bowl of a nest, tastefully decorated with long tendrils of grass, placed just so in the tree outside the window. I knew you were going to build it right there when I saw you nervously perched on that branch a few days ago. I wasn't sure you'd like the location, being so near the window of a child's bedroom, but I've also seen worse places to build. And I'm sure you were in a hurry to get those eggs laid.



So imagine my sadness when, just moments after I noticed your lovely nest, I also noticed a splotch on the window pane- sure evidence that you or your loving partner smashed into that window on your way home. Where did you go then, sweet bird? I did not find your lifeless body on the grass below but there has also been no recent activity in your nest.

I do hope you've been so busy eating and preparing that you haven't time to be in your nest much. It would be so fun to be able to watch you raise your babies this spring. And if your spirit has flown to better places (where there are no tricky mirror-like windows), I pray you did not suffer long on this earth and that your partner can move on to make a family with someone else.

Much love,

-E

PS- In case you're still out there, I will put the window cling up there so you won't make the same mistake twice.

Friday, May 8, 2015

Some new friends

We bought some new bird seed and have a few new visitors trying it out. This morning one blue jay ate while another nestled into a tree branch nearby.