4:21 AM – The clip starts with the finch and Cardinal peacefully sharing the feeder, and ends with the finch chasing off the other finches. Like a little feathered hog.
A Carolina Wren on the suet feeder. You can see these little acrobats at all the different feeders. They’re not picky eaters
Lots of Blue Jays. We caught four on video, and D saw a few more behind the camera. I wonder what the exact count is. We really have to focus on the Blue Jay ID project.
5:01 AM – Mother Cardinal feeding a young one. This is the second immature Card we’ve seen.
The back feathers of this Cardinal is kind of weird looking. I hope it’s part of the molting-refeathering process.
Just for a change, here are a couple of wet Blue Jays.
4:42 AM – At the beginning of this clip notice the Blue Jay dropping a seed, and trying to snatch it out of the air. For some reason that’s a very human gesture. Next, another Jay lands, and they have a beak duel. Then a longer sequence with a Jay and a Cardinal getting some feathers back on her bald head. I still think Cards are more aggressive when they’re molting and irritable.
The Mourning Doves have hogged the platform feeder for so long this Summer that the other birds seem to have gotten used to it. The cheeky little finch and the Jay ignore the bigger bird.
2:42 AM – We’ll start with the Blue Jays doing some synchronized gobbling. Be sure to watch all the way, at the end of the clip is a high speed version.
More finch action. A male and female Purple Finch are feeding, and are joined by a female Cardinal. They get along just fine until a male Cardinal shows up on the water dish, and chases the Purple away. The Cardinal is molting bad – maybe he was irritable.
4:32 AM – Our camera caught this mother Cardinal and young one early in the morning, before light. We’ve seen the adults feed each other, but this is the first time a Card brought a youngster to the feeder for a meal. Notice how at the end of the video the chick tries to feed itself.
The Mourning Doves continue to dominate the platform feeder. The little House Finch in the following clip is showing a lot of spirit, but he’s fighting out of his class.
3:27 AM – Sunday is the day for Videos of the Past. We’ll start with this one from November 2016, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and Cardinal peacefully sharing the water trough.
This is also from November, our first month. At that time we identified with bird as a Dark-eyed Junco. Just to be sure, we checked again, and sure enough, it looks like the pictures of the Junco on the Cornell Website. According to them, this bird is only here during the Winter. Not a spectacular looking bird, but rare (around here).
7:34 AM – This is a video of an immature Cardinal. According to Cornell Lab website, the juveniles can have dark beaks like this one, plus the dull colored feathers. With the number of Cardinals we see, it’s surprising we don’t run across more of these.
We just got a new camera to replace one that failed. This is it’s first outing, capturing a Carolina Wren at the mealworm feeder. The camera has sound, unlike the previous one.
3:45 AM – The Cardinals have had a bad time of it lately, what with the molting. Some of them are so pathetic looking that I stopped posting videos of them. Even though I’ve been reassured by more experienced back yard bird enthusiasts that this happens every summer, it’s been disturbing. This Cardinal, however, does seem to have a new batch of head feathers, ones that look bright and new, when compared with those on his body. This may be the same one that was featured a while back. They look new to me, anyway, and I’m inclined to be optimistic about this.
The friction between the Mourning Doves and Blue Jays continues. The larger, heavier Doves almost always prevail in these skirmishes.
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.
2:10 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.