MikeandRong

The Goldfinchs are really changing to their fall-winter colors these days. This Female Goldfinch has just about lost all of her summer yellow now and is getting much more white. Once the snow starts and the deep cold sets in she will be all white with just some black streaks on her wings.

Well Friday brought some much needed gentle rain on and off throughout the day. This did not seem to bother this little guy and his feeding schedule at all, rain or no rain. What it did seem to do is relax him somewhat and he did seem to stay and drink and rest for longer periods of time. Instead of just a minute or so, he will now stay up to around 4 minutes, drinking then resting then drinking again before flying off to some other place.

Lots of Hummingbirds are still using the feeders, from just before dawn all the way to dark. From my reading up on them I have discovered that the ones who seem to be drinking sap or dew off the Locast tree leaves are females that apparently do not drink from feeders, only the males do. Well I do have females that land on top of the feeders and drink off the morning condensation that gathers on top of it, and throughout the day will hover right under the bottom of the feeder and lick up the occasional drip that seeps out as it warms and expands inside, but they won't land on or drink from inside the feeder. This Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird was coming in and out all morning long feeding and then flying back up into the trees in the shade to rest before coming back in again for another drink. In the middle or second photo you can see where he actually closed his eyes and took a 45 second catnap before flying down for a drink. It was neat to see how such a short nap could refresh him so quickly and as I was so close to him (10 feet), it was quite obvious his eyes were closed and not just blinking.

Well I have not seen or smelled any Skunks now for almost a week, the Owls may indeed have taken care of them. But by me not putting out any food for the birds, that too probably helped keep out the nighttime vermin. I sure don't see or hear too many come around here these days, so I may put out some test seed and see if it starts attracting unwanted night guests again. Around dusk time in the summer it is not uncommon to see a few bats flying around catching mosquitoes and other night flying insects. They are usually quite small and fast, maybe about 8" wing tip to wing tip. This big bat caught my eye last week as he was much bigger than usual and not nearly as acrobatic as the small ones are. When flying his body was about the size of a big Pigeon and his wing span my best guess about 15"-18" tip to tip (he glided a lot). He only hung around about 15 minutes and has not been seen since then. I do know that some bats migrate, so perhaps this is one of the species that does. He also was just flying alone, no other ones were seen with him. The tree in the first picture is right at 50 yards away and he is flying just behind it. The other 2 photos shows him more in the open nearer to me and probably 25-30 yards out at the time of the photos. If anyone reading this knows about bats I would be interested to have a guess as to what species it could be. My best guess is a Big-brown Bat, or a Silver-haired Bat, based on his darker color, size, and body silhouette while flying.

One thing important to remember when your wife renews her passport while still in China, is to tell the worker that she wants the old one back once she gets the new one. In our case at the time, they kept the old one and only gave her the new one. It required 2 extra trips back to talk to the passport worker along with some help from a friend who knew another worker who just happened to work there too. The original had all the previous visas in addition to the proof of exit/entrystamps that was needed at a later time durning an interview back at USCIS here at home by the case officer.

Thank you and your crew for all of your time and effort that you have given to all of us and the site too.

At an 80% return rate, perhaps the market is getting flooded, 400k+ a year is a lot to absorb each year back at home. I have found that while the vast majority can have very good reading comprehension of English, the written is good, however it appears vastly memorized with improper word selection being used and not as flowing as a native born English speaker, who would choose/use a more correct word choice, and the spoken English while mostly understandable, is not how one (native born) would normally speak in terms of chosen vocabulary and overall sentence construction/flow, and i am completely disregarding pronunciation and or accent to be truly fair in my assessment. In my observations I am talking about college age people, probably age 24-27 and having 4-8 years of University education with a completed masters degree in their chosen field.

It does heal, however the scars last forever.

Here is one of the Adult Great Horned Owles that have been here raising their 2 yearlings since spring. They do a great job of keeping the Skunk population down to almost zero and wreak havoc on the Mice and Voles each night too. Strange that the rabbits in the yard all night never get picked off by the owles.

Lots of Hawks still in the area. I had to pull the bird food for a week now due to a couple of Skunks coming in the yard after dark and feeding on leftovers. Due to the 4 Great Horned Owls that have been here since spring I am quite sure these Skunks won't be around for long. This Coopers Hawk loves to hide in the shadows just waiting for his chance to snag a Dove on the fly or on the grass. I'm not feeding them, so unless one just happens by he is wasting his time. This is one of the 3 Red-tailed Hawk that lives a couple of doors down. I think this one is the Adult Male as he is alone and the yearling still follows mama around who is just huge looking. The squirrels are absolutely terrified of these Hawks and freeze on a tree trunk whenever one flys over, let alone land nearby.

This Coopers Hawk has been hanging around lately. The squirrels completely ignore him and just keep on feeding, not the least bit afraid of him. However any bird in the area with the exception of the yearling Mourning Doves (which are just not paying attention or are too young to realize the danger yet), are hiding and quiet. The Hawk does not stay in any one place but a couple of minutes before flying off to another tree or area to scope out his next meal. The Blue Jays, once one spots him, can easily scare him away even if it's just a single Jay.

Even the Nuthatches and Cardinals are either losing head feathers by molting or turning colors. This White-breasted Nuthatch is getting a lot of dark copper/brown underside feathers by his rear end. This Adult Male Cardinal also is undergoing his head feather molt. Those that make it to next spring ought to be just beautiful looking in time for breeding season.

By last week all of the Goldfinches have either changed color, molted, or are in between color phases. They do not sing quite as loudly as they did just a couple of weeks ago, and they also do not seem to be acting so territorial over resting places and food. Once it snows, the Goldfinches that don't migrate all group up together and feed together too, but their color is once again completely different, a more black/white/brown, with zero yellow plumage to be seen. Here is a sampling of their different color phases I am seeing now, all taken the same day last week.

The yearling Blue Jays are looking more and more like adults now days. Here this yearling is grabbing a peanut to go eat up in the tree. His beak is just a small bit shorter than an adult and doesn't have the growth rings you will see later on. Sort of like the growth rings you see on the horns of Dall Sheep and Antelopes. This yearling Blue Jay seemed to be blowing himself up, closing his eyes, and then shaking off just like a wet dog would do, except he was not wet. The photo caught him as he just closed his eyes and came to full puffyness while just starting to shake off.

The yearling Mourning Doves are all in big groups now days and not very smart yet. This guy walked right up to me and was not the least bit afraid. This group/flock came in all together and stayed in one large group all the while walking around and feeding. Staying this tight together is a good way to draw attention to themselves and have one of them get picked off by a Hawk or Falcon.

The Downy Woodpeckers are flying around like crazy these days, either feeding, playing follow the leader, or just being curious about things. This plump looking Female Downy Woodpecker did not seem to mind the 2 House Finches feeding opposite her at the same time. This yearling Female Downy Woodpecker was checking out one of the Sparrow houses hanging below the shed eave. She never went inside and as the Sparrows are done having babies now, none were home to chase her away.

After scaring the cat away the birds came back quickly. But with the season now starting to change many of the adult birds are molting their head and body feathers making me choose between yearlings, which are starting to look more grown up, or the molting adults. This sample from last week shows some of the different species and what they look like going through their molting process. This is a Adult Male Goldfinch, very typical of what I am seeing now. This Adult Male Red-bellied Woodpecker I see multiple times throughout the day and is taking a long time to grow his feathers back, it's been over 4 weeks since he lost them. This sad looking Adult Blue Jay really takes the prize for ugly bird of the day.

Good for him. He made out much better than he would have here with our eminent domain laws.

Mama being from the NE says the cat is very very dirty, it eat the mouse so now is more dirty. If is sit on you when you sleep and it breath you mouth, then it take you soul, so it a very bad thing in the house too. On the other hand my father ate cat soup while serving in the Korean War and said it was ok. Me, I have found that most meat, both wild and domestic, picks up the flavor of what it eats, so I would pass on the cat as most meat eaters don't taste that good.

I was absolutely dertimined to spot what is causing this lack of birds and crying squirrel alarms that have been going on now for the last few weeks. So, totally camouflaged out, I waited, and I waited, making zero movement and blending in perfectly with my spot. The only thing I would have to move if needed would be a slight camera angle if I spot my target. BINGO! Busted!! I did not shoot him, only snapped a few photos, stood up, and scared the holy beegees out of him. He cleared the 4 foot fence to the other side in one blur of a movement and was gone. He sure is pretty looking and looking a bit thin along his top spine and back thigh too. I have never seen him before and it is very unusual to see one outside in the daytime in this neighborhood anyways. Now it all makes sense, lack of birds, spooky birds, and squirrels making the long cry alarm near and far. We had some new neighbors move in 2 houses down, perhaps it belongs to them but I doubt it, again due to his thinness that I am seeing.

The store finally received their back order of suet blocks of the peanutbutter flavor. It is the absolute #1 choice above all the other flavors for all the different birds that do feed on the suet. Just put it out this morning and this Male Downy Woodpecker completely ignored the fruit and berry suet block that was still hanging up from yesterday and flew a beeline straight to his favorite flavor. This English Starling was making a huge mess pulling out all the nuts he did not want to eat and only eating the cashew nut halves, swallowing them whole in one big gulp. This Female Goldfinch landed over me and looked down at me and the thistle seed. Acting a little spooky she flew over to the black oil sunflower seeds on the far feeder to feed alongside some Sparrows.

It's been so dry here with no rain I am having to put out fresh water for the birds and squirrels to have a drink each day now. If no water is out, the squirrels will wreak havoc on all the different vegetables ripening in the garden now just to find some moisture. Here this yearling Blue Jay after having finished drinking just hopped right in and took a bath before flying up to eat some more peanuts. This Morning Dove would just dunk his head underwater and shake it off, but he would not commit to the full bathing experience. This very nice sized White-breasted Nuthatch decided for a change of pace and came in to feed on the black thistle seed instead of his usual diet nuts and suet.

The past 5 days have been quite full with not a lot of free time, and when time is to be had, very sporadic and much fewer species to be seen or heard. Even though it's in the high forties early AM, it warms up nicely and it's been perfect weather here. All day long though I can hear the squirrels and Blue Jays with their alarm screams and it's much too often to be any Hawks or other birds of prey causing such an alarm. I can hear the alarm calls from a few houses away, so it's not just my house that things are amiss. Later I'm sure it will turn up and I'll know for sure what's causing the daytime terror. Well here we have a yearling Male Red-winged Blackbird still hanging around and more intent on feeding than being bothered by the Female Downy Woodpecker eating at the same time. This yearling Male Downy Woodpecker almost always chooses the suet feeders over the mixed peanuts and sunflower seeds. Even with the cold mornings the Hummingbirds are still here. They must be very close by sleeping because they arrive well before sunrise for a drink and then rest on the clothesline before feeding again. If not for the white chest it is still so dark you would have no idea they are right in front of you. This guy here hangs around quite a bit now and even if not having a drink he will just sit and rest for a bit before flying off to his other feeding spots.

So because I was sitting on the opposite side I was able to be right under this Ruby-throated Hummingbird that landed right over me about 8 feet away. He was more concerned with the Yellow Jackets and chasing them away than he was with me taking his pictures. In the third photo he has a unique black mark on his throat that may be the start of the ruby red color that will come in later. In the last photo, his small green back feathers are so small that they remind me of fish scales. I'm glad I was sitting so close and waited the extra minute and I was able to get these photos.

The sun was so bright today at this time I was sitting on the opposite side of the front tree now and getting ready to go inside for lunch. This Female Cardinal was all puffed up and calling but it did not seem to bother the Female House Sparrow that was feeding at the same time too.