4:21 AM – This Carolina Chickadee doesn’t have an easy time getting out the mealworms, but he’s a persistent little guy. Eventually, success, and he flies off with one. We saw this small struggle repeated several times. He always gets his worm.
We can’t tell if the feathers on this Cardinal are coming or going, but we sure hope those bare patches will be filling in soon.
2:28 AM – Red-bellied Woodpeckers. They’ll show up at any of the feeders, but the suet is their favorite, for both young and old.
There are several Blue Jays using the platform feeder these days. A few of these are the new young ones. I wonder if they’ll stay around, or move on to their own yards.
1:42 PM – Another video of one of those young bluebirds with interesting markings. It looks like they’re wearing a fleecy sheepskin vest.
Nothing unusual here, just a Tufted Titmouse and a Carolina Wren gorging on mealworms. Quiet day at the food court.
2:10 AM – Another Retro-Sunday, featuring videos from the archives. We started recording and posting these in November of last year, and have only missed a few days. That’s a lot of bird (and squirrel and raccoon) action. These are a few of the earliest ones.
First, a Carolina Wren drinking and bathing.
This one shows Mrs. Cardinal bathing after nudging a little sparrow out of the way.
And finally, purple finches, male and female.
3:27 AM – The young Red-bellied Woodpecker at the mealworm feeder. His crest gets a little redder every day.
Bluebird with unusual markings.
Blue Jay after being caught in the rain.
4:39 AM – This is clearly the season for young birds. I think this one is a juvenile Blue Jay, based on his size and indistinct color and pattern of feathers. We’re new to back yard bird watching, and we’re still learning about these things. We have seen plenty of juvenile Bluebirds, but this is really the first Jay that I’m pretty sure is a young one.
The Red-bellied Woodpecker doesn’t do much platform feeding, but this young one stopped by for a few minutes. Note that the top of his head is getting a little red.
The little Carolina Chickadee probably got it’s feathers ruffled in a rain shower that passed through that afternoon. He’s so small, with a tiny beak, that he has to break the mealworms apart to eat them. We like chickadees.
1:15 AM – Downy Woodpecker going after the suet cylinder with lots of determination and energy.
Carolina Wren discovers that there the mealworm feeder is completely empty, but returns several times for a thorough search, just to be sure. He finally got hungry enough to stop by the suet feeder for dinner, but we recorded several vain attempts to find mealworms throughout the afternoon. These birds really like mealworms, even the dried (as opposed to live) ones.
We’ve had lots of posts about molting, particularly with the Cardinals. They seem to have particularly dramatic time of it, what with the naked black head and general patchy, scruffy look. It seems as if they’ve been molting for a long time. Lately we’ve seen Cardinals that looks so severely afflicted that we’re becoming concerned that it might be some disease, and not the natural process of feather replacement. We did some research, and compared images from the Cornell website and others, and have been reassured. No matter how scrofulous the red birds look, it’s almost certainly normal plumage replacement.
We were going to present videos of pathetic looking Cardinals, but decided to spare everyone. Except for this video, of a sad Card sharing with doves. The doves look kind of sorry for him.
3:23 AM – This Red-bellied Woodpecker appears to be a young (immature) one, as indicated by the gray (instead of red) head, and not a molting one. This is the first of these we’ve seen.
Most of the Grackles have moved on, but there are two or three that still show up at the feeders. We can live with that, since they don’t consume any more than the doves or blue jays etc. It’s only when the numbers get out of control that we try to move them on.
None of these bluebirds at the mealworm feeder are fully grown, judging by the various immature plumage on them. At this point we’ve lost track of the generations.
2:48 AM – Blue Jay and a Brown Thrasher spar at the platform feeder. Notice that the first Jay flies off when the Thrasher swoops in, and is replaced by another one immediately. The video ends with the Jay in the feeder, and the Thrasher looking on, probably ready for a fight.
As if the Jays didn’t have enough squabbling with the Doves and Thrashers, every now and then they like to mix it up among themselves.
No doubt in my mind that this Cardinal is ready for molting season to end. He looks like a thatched roof.
1:12 AM – We had a minor invasion of Common Grackles Sunday, our first. They are distinguished from Crows by their yellow eye (on adults) and iridescent feathers with highlights of green, blue, brown (and probably more) in the black. The slightly smaller, brownish birds mixed in with them are immature Grackles. There were a lot of them all over the yard, on all of the feeders and water supplies, on the ground. It’s hard to estimate, but I’d say more than a few dozen and less that a hundred. Needless to say, there were none of the regulars feeding at the same time.
The Grackles were big, noisy, quarrelsome birds. Notice the Mourning Dove at the end of the clip, scooting onto the feeder was soon as the Grackles left.
These are attractive birds, with the shiny feathers. The big yellow eye is disturbing, though.
They got to all of the feeders, including the suet cage. They really tore piece out of the suet cylinder. I have no doubt they would have demolished it if they hadn’t been scared off.
After they’d been here about 15 minutes I went out and ran them off. Unless we want an “all Grackle – all the time” foodcourt, we have to move them on to some other lucky back yard. They came back about ten minutes later. I ran them off again, and five minute later they were back again. This time I sat on the deck with a camera for about twenty minutes. They flew through the yard a few times, and finally disappeared. Visits from Grackles are very much a “Glad you’re here, when are you leaving” kind of experience.