Birding.

[MikeandRong]

Other than a few local birds and a Hummingbird, these 2 Red-tail Hawks have been soaring over the house area nonstop these days. So no real good pictures to show until they go hunting a little farther away.

 

 

[amberjack1234]

They are watching all that congregation of birds that you have attracted. I use to have them as well as Peregrine Falcons.

[MikeandRong]

They are watching all that congregation of birds that you have attracted. I use to have them as well as Peregrine Falcons.

They are watching all that congregation of birds that you have attracted. I use to have them as well as Peregrine Falcons.

They were about 250 yards up at picture time. But when they take off from the neighbors tree they barely clear the tree tops even with their powerful wing beats. Once they get about 50 yards up they hit some wind currents and start a gentle giant circle, only gliding up to the next air current they want, never once beating their wings or flapping them. Probably at 400 yards they find the wind current they want and off they go pretty darn fast, and still gliding all the way. Amazing to watch them climb like that, I've seen the Sandhills do the exact same thing, only they go up even higher and do a much tighter circle to climb.

 

It's the little Hawks that can maneuver in between the trees that the birds have to watch out for. The squirrels completely ignore the small Hawks and falcons that are here and just continue with whatever they were doing at the time. Birds go dead silent and rocket to the nearest thick bush, hedge, or pine tree for cover. The Falcon will follow them right into the heavy stuff too. But let a Redtail fly over or scream out and they all freeze and cling to the nearest tree like a statue.

 

Once the trees lose their leafs I cut way back on the feeding just to make sure I don't draw any crowds, because I have witnessed way too many dive bomb kills in the yard. 10 or more at a time is just asking to get picked off, and more often than not it is a Dove or a Robin that stuck around and didn't migrate. But the Doves seem to be the number 1 choice for those bird eaters (not counting the mice and such), espically when their on the ground, or sleeping all alone on a branch in the afternoon. I've never seen a Blackbird, Woodpecker, or Songbird get picked off though, even the alone ones, maybe they just don't taste good. I've eaten Dove, Blackbird, Crow, Sparrow, and Starling before, and the Dove is by far the best tasting to me, so who knows.

 

I still haven't seen an adult male Hummingbird with a ruby red throat come through here yet, and this morning it was 48 degrees in the backyard at 5:30am. And to think it was 89 on Monday, what a change!

[amberjack1234]

Good story and could you send some of that 48 degrees down to the coast of NC. I know the tourist won't appreciate it send it anyway maybe it will send some of them home.

[MikeandRong]

Good story and could you send some of that 48 degrees down to the coast of NC. I know the tourist won't appreciate it send it anyway maybe it will send some of them home.

It sure felt good, even with the windows closed the inside temp registered 66 and a flannel shirt was broken out for a couple of hours. I'll send some on down your way and we'll get those summer rentals packing up for sure. Just be sure to send some warmth up my way in about 5 months from now when the high is hovering around 0.

[amberjack1234]

Will do.....

[MikeandRong]

Was still cold this morning and I have noticed that the Hummingbirds will only take but a quick sip until the sun warms up the sucrose water later on in the day. So I changed out the cold outdoor water for nice warm 80 degree inside sucrose water and waited to see what would happen. It worked like a charm, with those Hummingbirds staying a minute or two drinking and resting and then drinking again. This little guy was resting on the clothesline eyeballing the feeder and when he was ready, he did a quick sky jump off the line on down to the feeder hardly beating his wings until he was level, he then did a quick reverse thrust flare out with his tail to bring him to a stop, and then settled in for a drink.

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

Did not see or hear any Hawks this morning and that encouraged the rest of the birds to come on out and be fairly relaxed today while staying around for a bite to eat. This photo is of a new Adult Male Goldfinch that I don't recall seeing here before. He arrived and ate quietly, and the only time he started to sing was when he was all finished eating and starting to fly away.

 

[MikeandRong]

This adult Female Cardinal was sitting on the feeder all alone and both chirping her baby call and wing beating without moving the rest of her body. She was not trying to fly and I finally saw a baby Cardinal land just behind her on a tree branch waiting to get fed. Turns out the stay in place wing flapping is a visual attention getter she was using in addition to her calling that lets her baby easily see her and know it's safe to fly on in to get fed. The parents will keep feeding their young as long as the babies beak stays the color black. After a very short period of time it changes to an opaque orange and then that's it, they are on their own. The last photo here (from last week Tuesday) shows this stage of turning orange and just how young they look when they are left to fend for themselves, all the while looking like a wet baby chicken.

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

You would think that the Cicadas would be all done emerging this late in the summer, but they are still coming up new every single morning. This Black-capped Chickadee was busy climbing up and down the tree trunk in front of me, and as I had not seen them do this technique before I was watching him to try to see why. As he stuck his head into a deeper valley of the tree bark and started pulling on something, I then spotted the newly emerged Cicada in its beak. Because it was still soft and it's wings not even dried out yet, there was zero chance of escape. I only managed one quick photo of this happening and apologize for not getting a better focus before taking a picture. I just did not expect a Chickadee to be pulling out a Cicada so I was not prepared for the moment, thinking it would be just a hidden sunflower seed that the Nuthatch had previously stashed there.

 

[MikeandRong]

These Red-bellied Woodpeckers always start calling from another tree before the fly in and land to eat, so I have plenty of time to get up and move in closer for a better picture. I think they are 1 year old brothers as I rarely see two of them eating together and yearlings don't molt their red head feathers. The first guy landed and just sat there for a minute not eating nor calling. His brother came in next and it appeared they greeted each other in a very non aggressive family type bonding. Happy with each other's company they took opposite sides of the feeder and each ate their fill and there was no aggressive or agitated behavior from either of them. This was pretty cool for me to be able to witness this from only about 10 yards away.

 

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

This different color phased Non-breeding Female Goldfinch caught my eye once again. Back on August 4th was when I photographed one for the first time and I haven't seen one of this color since then, until today that is. This one appears smaller in size and lacking the banana yellow head that the first one had, but the body, wing, back, and tail feathers all match the color phase of the first bird. This one acted quite tame in my presence just as the first one did too. They sure are pretty up close, but it never sang nor chirped, so I don't know if they sound the same at this stage of growth as a regular colored Goldfinch does.

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

This Ruby-throated Hummingbird really enjoyed the warmed up sucrose water that I made for them today. She is much lighter in color than most of the others I have been seeing, and a picture search online has lead me to believe that this is a Female, but the black dots on her throats are throwing me off to be 100% positive. You can clearly see in most of the photos that her tongue is flicking in and out and up and down too. Pictures 1&2 show the up and down of her tongue and 3 shows how far in she pushes her beak to gain access to the sucrose. The last photo shows how long her tongue can be extended outwards. I've also been noticing that at times the birds will show up with a white powdery residue at various places along their beak, I'm guessing it is some type of flower pollen that they have picked up from somewhere else where they had been drinking at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeandRong]

Only a minute later I glanced over to the other sucrose feeder, which I converted from being an Oriole feeder, seeing I have only seen but 1 lone female perching on the power line and getting spooked away by a Dove rather quickly. I have no idea if it's the same Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the above photos or a different one. It looked a little bigger than the first one and had much more green color on its back. Sometimes they fly really slow and I can follow them throughout the yard and the various tree branches they stop to rest on. Other times they fly quite fast and pick a direct line between the trees or fly right over the roofline of the house, both departing or suddenly arriving from out of nowhere. But I like the change of color and different sunlight exposure, even though it twice as far away as the first feeder.

 

 

[amberjack1234]

Glad to see that you are not putting food coloring into the humming bird sugar water. Especially the red color that does help to attract them but will cause tumors on their toungs.