1:52 AM – I don’t know what’s gotten into these birds. Usually the sparrows (all varieties) mind their own business. This one lights into a Tufted Titmouse, gets thrown back, circles around and attacks again. Flies right into his little flank. Wow. Maybe it’s all the rowdy adolescent bluebirds, infecting the whole Foodcourt.
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Later the same afternoon, a couple of the Bluebird Gang (now numbering four males and a female) were hanging around the water when a Purple Finch stopped for a drink. Surprisingly, they didn’t attack him. After a bit, he flew off. Then more of the bluebirds came – there were four males in all. This is the first real verification of the numbers.
3:28 AM – A few days ago we reported our scheme to seed the platform feeder with pieces of the ‘pepper’ suet, with the expectation that it would repel the squirrels and raccoons. We had a video showing a squirrel checking out the feeder, and then moving on. Well, it turns out that, no, the squirrels didn’t fall for this trick. See here, as this one takes a victory lap around the feeder and birdbath, then parks himself in the middle of the pepper suet/black oil seed mix. Our only hope is that the juvenile delinquent bluebirds will show up and run him off.
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The Red-bellied Woodpecker is a much more frequent visitor than he used to be. He used to stick to the suet feeder, but he’s now at the platform and mealworm feeders also.
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The young bluebirds are still around. In this video, they’re getting feed by the adult male bluebird. They don’t assault any of the other bird species, for a change.
1:53 AM – Maybe we should call this edition of the Backyard Foodcourt “Young Bluebirds Misbehaving”. But before we get to that, here’s a short video of an Indigo Bunting. This is the first of these to show up at the Foodcourt. They’re supposed to be attracted to thistle, so we spread some in the platform feeder. We’d like to see more of this beautiful little bird.
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Now the young bluebirds. We’ll start with one of the young males going after a couple of goldfinches. One of the finches is very small, and may be an immature goldfinch.
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In this one, Mrs. Cardinal seems to try to run off one of the young male bluebirds. That doesn’t work out the way she planned. Note the cardinal’s crest rising and falling as she engages the bluebird.
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To end on a more heartwarming note (sort of), here’s one of the bluebirds getting fed by Mr. Bluebird. Then a male Cardinal lands and the two start a stare-down. The film runs out, so we don’t know what happens next.
3:08 AM – We made some changes to the camera set up – since we weren’t getting many hummingbird videos yet, we swapped that feeder with the cylindrical ‘suet’ feeder. There’s always something going on there, usually woodpeckers, but plenty of other kinds as well.
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The big Red-bellied Woodpecker is now a regular at the mealworm feeder. Usually we only capture his head and shoulders, but the placement of the camera today shows him hanging upside down to get to the worms.
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The Carolina Wren is such a frequent visitor that we don’t usually post videos of them. We usually see them at the mealworm feeder, though they show up often at the suet feeder, as well as the platform. In this case, we had some mealworms in the platform feeder that attracted him. Wrens, like so many others, really like mealworms.
3:44 AM – Starting off with a brief clip of one of the recently returned Blue Jays:
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The young bluebirds are back, this time learning to take baths.
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And finally, some good news about the Foodcourt management problem of voracious squirrels. We recently replaced the cylinder in the suet feeder, the pepper suet feeder. The few bits left from the old cylinder of packed seeds impregnated with pepper juice of some kind, we put into the platform feeder. Watch this squirrel finding that out. If this little bit of pepper suet also works as a deterrent for the raccoons it will save us the aggravation of taking in feeders at night. I almost feel bad for the squirrel, he looks disappointed.
12:34 AM – We don’t see that many Robins at the feeders. More often, they’re feeding on the lawn. This one is getting a drink of water. He stares down a couple of Mourning Doves.
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Male Northern Cardinal having lunch, and looking around for someone. This looks like more than the normal alertness-for-cats-and-hawks, so I suppose he’s looking for Mrs. Cardinal, or possibly other males.
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This is a good video of a Yellow-rumped Warbler on the mealworm feeder. He moves to the other side of the feeder, out of our sight, then a bluebird flies right at him, and he disappears somewhere. I can’t actually see him flying away from the feeder, but in an instant the bluebird is sitting where there once was a warbler.
1:03 AM – Here are a few video clips from the last few days.
In this one, three species of birds share the feeder and water – Mrs. Cardinal, a Purple Finch couple, and for a few seconds a tiny Carolina Chickadee.
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The Blue Jays are still around, I happy to say:
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We’re seeing the male cardinal at the mealworm feeder a lot more lately. Here’s an extreme closeup.
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Once more, the big Red-bellied Woodpecker helps himself to mealworms. His beak looks really big and strong.
This Yellow-rumped Warbler has very distinct and attractive markings. The Cornell Lab website says this is the usual Spring/Summer plumage for the male. Since we’ve only been watching the backyard birds since this past Winter we’re used to seeing these warblers in their drab cold weather uniforms.
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We thought there were only three immature bluebirds, but this video shows, for a brief moment, four of them.
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Last vidoe: a cat at the birdbath. We see more of them at night, but this one was on a daytime scouting mission.
12:15 AM – The Blue Jays are back. Here’s one at the platform feeder. We really like these birds. By the way, look in the lower left background of the video for a Cardinal getting a drink of water from a very small water container.
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Here’s something new: a Purple Finch feeding what looks like an immature finch.
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The Eastern Bluebirds continue to feed young ones:
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This video of a Red-bellied Woodpecker clinging to the mealworm feeder is cool, but kind of creepy. He’s so big that we only see his head and claws, like a close-up shot of King Kong clinging to the Empire State building.
1:52 AM – The immature bluebirds were around again yesterday. We were reading about them. Evidently at this stage they’re out of the nest for good (of course), do they spend the next few weeks eating and hiding. Here’s one doing exactly that:
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It’s still the season for Cardinal food sharing:
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The spotlight has been on the immature bluebirds lately, and the ‘kissing’ cardinals, but the other birds are still there in the background. Here’s a Purple Finch, though not one of the realy dramatically raspberry colored ones.