Hello Spring!

 Song - When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along by Bing Crosby

 

 Mr. & Mrs. Titmouse have been busy making their home a showstopper for 2021.  For two weeks one of them would be in the house tap-tap-tapping all day long as the other one flitted back and forth making sure all was well.  I guess they were hoping to enlarge their nesting box.  

 

I get so much enjoyment from these two and am able to help teach my grandson Henry about birds and their nests.

 

 

A birdhouse in the shade garden fell to the ground sometime this winter - probably by a squirrel - and Mr. B was kind enough to help rehang it with extra screws!

 

It may be too late for the birds to use this spring but it will be ready for them next year.

We have been seeing this small little wren like birds and I found out that they are Bushtits.  They love the suet feeder full of bugs and nuts! They also like the nesting balls I have hanging on our trees.

They work very hard at pulling the cotton out of the twig ball and just when you think they have too much to fly with, they go in for even more!

Even the hummingbirds go in for this nesting material.  They have gone through two balls this month so I just purchased two more along with some refill for the first two!  

Two days ago I woke up to find two beautiful deer in our backyard happily munching away on my roses. In 25 years they have never gotten into our backyard and when I walked out to see the damage they had done I almost cried.  My new tender rose growth, the hydrangeas, new shoots from my sweet peas....gone....now I love deer but not in my garden!  Mr. B and I went out that day with deer repellent and sprayed the yard.....I have two more bottles coming in the mail today!  Yesterday I opened the front curtain and there was a big ol' turkey on my front porch.  He didn't do much damage and I was glad that Henry got to see him and now walks around the house saying "gobble, gobble"!

One more beautiful troublemaker in my yard - hawks!  Just while I was typing this post I saw him fly into a tree right outside my door.  I see you Mr. Hawk trying to hide behind the wind chimes!!!

 

"Enjoy the little things in life for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things."

--Kurt Vonnegut

 

 

The Birds Have Taken Over

Song - Stop! In The Name of Love by The Supremes

The birds seem to be everywhere this Spring!  They are on our patio.....

...on our string lights.....

...in our pool...yuck....

...looking through our windows....

....hanging out on the deck railing.....

...in the bird houses.....

.....overhead......

....on our roof (6:30 am sharp they land with a thump)...

...in our spa...yuck....

...and the trees are full of them looking like colorful Christmas ornaments!

But they come in the name of   L  O  V  E  .....

And nest making on our outdoor speakers!

Here are the happy couple - Marge & Fred Finch

They are the ones building the nest in the speakers

He sings her beautiful love songs while she's tidying up the nest!

Luckily it's right outside my office window so I get to enjoy his joyful tune.

 

Empty Nesters

Song - Oak Titmouse Coaxing Young to Fledge

Remember in March when I saw some Oak Titmice making a nest in Mr. B's barn-style bird house?  Well for the last two weeks we have been hearing some mighty high pitched noises coming from the Japanese Maple tree.  We thought.....wow, there must be hundreds of tiny birds in that tree but every time we looked for them, we couldn't see any birds.  I finally saw a parent Oak Titmouse in the tree with a big fat green worm in his mouth.

The more we watched the parents come and go with tasty morsels, the more the high pitched chirps would happen.  It was the baby birds inside the bird house excitedly waiting for mom or dad to bring them something to eat.

On Tuesday morning I saw a little one peeking through the hole of the bird house.  Hi there little fellow!  I set up my tripod inside our dining room and patiently waited to see what he would do.

Can't you just see him thinking "it's a mighty long way down from the railing of the deck if my wings aren't quite ready......"

And number one has lift off.........I actually cried when I saw him fledge.

As soon as he had flown away, I saw another cute face in the bird house wondering if it was his turn now.  He went through all the same moves as number one. He looked down, went back in to reconsider several times, came out again and then before I knew it number two had flown away too!

Mom and dad kept coming back with treats trying to encourage the youngsters to leave the nest.

"Oh Junior....I have a big tasty grasshopper for you if you'll just come outside"

"Ahhhhh.....Dad right now it's so cozy inside 

and besides I kinda like having my breakfast brought to me in bed"

 And every time mom or dad came out of the house they would have a little crumb of something that they have cleaned up after Junior. Some things never change.....

And number three is more than ready to leave.....she took no time in flying off!

Number four...... 

 Number five.....

Number six needed a little prompting from mom...... 

And he's off.....

It sure is quite around here today!

"All of a sudden, the nest is empty.  

The birds have gone, 

and what had been a constant blur of activity

 is nothing more than a few discarded feathers.  

Silence mutes all that was colorful 

and it is time to reestablish

 our significant place in an ever changing world."

-- Marci Seither

Comings and Goings

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