1:05 AM – Close up videos of a couple of juvenile bluebirds on the mealworm feeder.
The Carolina Chickadees again. In the first clip, compare the color of the Chickadee’s and Cardinals breast feathers. The Chickadee’s coloring is really a lot richer than it’s supposed to be (at least, according to the Internet).
2:41 AM – Now that we have the camera pointed at the mealworm feeder we’re getting lots of video of the bluebirds. In this one, it’s a couple of adults, but there are a lot of juveniles around too (video of them to come soon).
Here we have Mrs. Cardinal – looking good in richly colored brown feathers – displaced by Mr. Cardinal. A Carolina Chickadee shares the feeder for a little bit. That loud noise that startles Mr. Cardinal, and makes him so vigilant, is a hickory nut hitting the deck.
12:33 AM – Sunday we have videos from the past.
Three juvenile bluebirds are hanging around the birdbath, until a juvenile American Robin shows up. I wasn’t sure what that bird was, so I confirmed with Cornell Lab’s website – yes, it’s a young robin.
Next, a robin having a good, splashy bath, water flying everywhere.
12:01 AM – We moved the mealworm feeder in front of a camera, so we’re getting videos of all those birds that really like mealworms. In this case, it’s bluebirds, young and adult, and a Red-bellied Woodpecker.
Sparrows are not as numerous around here, at this time of the year. I’m not sure exactly which kind this is. I’m calling it a White-throated Sparrow, but it could be some variety of Song or House Sparrow.
12:02 AM – A couple of Blue Jays, peacefully feeding together, get evicted from the feeder by a Red-bellied Woodpecker. I don’t blame them – I’d get out of the way too. The Red-belly doesn’t stay long, and the Jay returns, after taking a good look around.
We’ve got a cardinal, a purple finch, a bluebird and what looks like a couple of goldfinches in the background, all at the same time.
3:24 AM – This is the first sight of a bluebird in several weeks. They used to be all over the place. Here’s one at the cylinder feeder, then some bluebird activity at the platform feeder. These are all juveniles, and so have spots and stripe, and not too much blue on them.
We don’t see many squirrels in the platform feeder since we started using pepper seed – that is, seed impregnated with some kind of hot pepper flavoring. It doesn’t bother the birds, but it usually repels the squirrels and raccoons. Except for this tough customer, who seems to have developed an immunity.
12:10 AM – One Blue Jay sneaks a peck on the tail of another, and gets run off. He’s back after a bit, though, and a little more careful when he’s feeding.
More Blue Jay antics. This pair looks like they’re doing some kind of dance around the platform. Some kind of ‘modern’ dance.
2:56 AM – Another Sunday, another Blast from the Past.
We haven’t see a bluebird for about a month. From April, 2017, here are a couple of videos of the first crop of young ones, and an adult supervisor.
From November 2016, a sparrow bathing. You can’t tell from the video, but it was really cold that day. The sparrow didn’t care.
3:48 AM – More bluebirds. For some reason they were absent from the mealworm feeder for a day – we had no videos at all of them. The next day, though, they were back. Where were they? No one knows.
We’re gradually starting to identify each Blue Jay – we’re not sure how many, but we’ll eventually have a pretty good count. This one is recognizable by the two vivid white patches on his lower back, one above the other. His ‘collar’, the black marking around his neck is lower than most of the others, and his face markings are not strong, just a relatively faint line across the eyes and a black bar between the eyes. He also seems to be molting, but that’s another story. We need to find out of the markings change from molting to molting – just one more fact about birds we don’t know – yet.
1:41 PM – Today was maintenance day on the feeder, with D doing all of the cleaning and fixing up. She’s the best.
Once the feeders were back in operation we got this video of a Carolina Wren reaching into the suet cage for a snack.
And bluebirds, now regulars at the suet cage.