Song (video) - Oak Titmice Raise a Family by Rob J. Watson
Time for a short intermission about Paris because the birds have gone wild in my garden!
The little Oak Titmouse outside of my dining room door has been happily nesting in Mr. B's birdhouse for several weeks now. Every morning I can hear the daddy call to the mom "scuse me", "scuse me", "scuse me" until she comes out of the house. Lately this has been going on more often during the day. I can't believe that he interrupts her so sweetly with his call "scuse me". He either greets her with some food or she flies off to find something while he stands guard over their house.
That's nest number one in our yard.
Yesterday I was doing some hand watering and noticed a little Black-Capped Chickadee clinging on the tree next to Andy's nesting box. Today I saw her go inside. So I set up my tripod and camera on the path in front of the box. nothing.......nothing.....So I set it up on the upper deck looking through tree branches.
And within minutes, there she was!
That is nest number two!
As I walked around the side of the house to get some gardening tools, I startled a Mourning Dove on the ground. He flew up onto the gate. Mama has made a nest in the same spot for the fifth year in a row.
She used to make it on the red ladder but now she likes the nesting box under the eves.
That would be nest number 3.
My neighbor came by this afternoon to tell me about some travel plans and mentioned that the Cooper's Hawk has built a nest in the Oak tree between our houses again. Her father planted these Oak trees from tiny trees growing in milk cartons from UC Davis in 1949.
I didn't see any activity way up there today so I am sharing two photos from when they nested in the same tree several years ago.
The photo above is an adult hawk and the photo below is of a juvenile.
That makes nest number four!!!
See what I mean about the birds going wild?
"The early bird gets the worm.
The early worm......gets eaten."
-- Norman Ralph Augustine
