BACK YARD BIRDS

The Garst Mill Ducks

May 2009: An Interesting Case of Fowl Parenting

Catching a hummingbird feeding on a butterfly plant is as much a matter of luck and patience as skill. This one was sipping behind my neighbor's townhouse on July 3, 2008.  About a month earlier, I caught the goldfinch from my back balcony.

 A few years ago, this pair of blue birds occupied a house on a deck in my neighborhood. There were three babies inside and the parents didn't much like it when a squirrel dropped by for lunch.

All birds are not as clever as the blue birds above or the robin below. My new tenants are mourning doves, who don't seem to understand that a storage box on my deck is not really a very suitable place to raise a family.  As this happens to be where my garbage can is stored, not to mention a few other things, it seems inevitable that I will continually disturb Mom, who is presently sitting on one egg, photographed when she took frightened flight when I had to go out there this morning (April 11, 2005). Later, when I returned the garbage can to the deck, she barely gave me a glance, so I guess co-existence is going to be possible.

April 28:  Baby Dove's first picture snapped this morning.  A couple of days ago I saw the broken shell and yesterday I got my first glimpse of the baby, but wasn't able to get a picture.  There appears to be only one chick.  Mom keeps it pretty much under cover to protect it from the unseasonable chill we are having this April.

May 7: I've been gone almost a week.  Here's an adolescent dove very  much out on the open. 
When Mom flew off, what do we see but another egg!
May 8, Mother's Day, the family took flight some time between morning and afternoon.
The lone egg was abandoned. 
 Below,May 16:  I discovered the young bird in the shade of my rhododendron bush.
I got one picture before he/she flew away.

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In 2004, it was a robin who set up housekeeping in my neighbor's door wreathe

Several years ago At my son and daughter-in-law's house, this lady robin chose their carport as a place to raise a family. It was hard to catch Mom closeup, but at least one of the babies, right,  was not the least camera shy:

Barn swallows are not so common in urban backyards. The quintet of hungry babies at left, and Mom, right, taking a break from many flights back and forth with food, were photographed high in the rafters of an early American barn at the MUSEUM OF FRONTIER CULTURE near Staunton, VA.

Paul Zweifel of Radford sent me this picture he took several
years ago of a nesting humming bird..

Before I moved to Roanoke, VA, I photographed and sketched the birds around my home in Little Rock, AR

	Bird houses, bushes and trees, window sills, feeders on decks and in yards....these are the haunts of the birds we know and love best.
Even in winter, they hang around silhouetted on bare branches...
	...and when it snows they truly appreciate those feeders that hang in the yard.
As spring begins to stir the trees to bud,a downy woodpecker looks for lunch...
	In the spring the finches turn the color that gives them the nickname of wild canaries...
At least the male turns brilliant yellow. The female retains her less conspicuous coloration all year long.

Among the commonest back yard birds are the blue jays, raucous but lovely to look at. The baby perched on the lawn chair was one of the friendliest birds I've ever encountered.

 

 
 

And then there is the ubiquitous robin....not a frequenter of the bird feeder, of course. He prefers, as everybody knows, worms.
 
 
 

 

The colorful cardinal is the state bird of Virginia.