Category Archives: Birds

There’s another bird that I’ve seen around for about three years, but it’s been VERY hard to photograph. I’ve gotten a couple of odd, fuzzy, small photos, and I’ve ID’ed it from its birdsong using the Cornell Ornithology Lap app. But they’re tiny, quick, they never sit around for long, and so far while I’ve seen them plenty and heard them plenty more, I had only gotten one halfway decent photo.

It’s a Bewick’s Wren (pronounced “Buick,” like the car) and they’re tiny-ish little fuzzballs with long tails. Bigger than hummingbirds (but not by much) with that long, thin tail, but much smaller than mockingbirds or towhees.

Even when I would see one sitting still instead of constantly moving and hopping about, they were always well up into the trees, tough to spot embedded in the foliage.

About a month ago I finally got one to sit still, out where I could see it, and then stay there long enough for me to take a series of pictures.

Notice the shape of the bill and that long, thin tail.

The tail is also zebra striped.

Their call is very distinctive. Actually they have several distinctive calls, which was also confusing when trying to ID them.

There’s a white stripe above the eyes.

If it looks like he’s pecking at the branch, almost like a woodpecker might, you’re right. They eat lots of small bugs and ants.

Finally, some decent pictures of the Bewick’s Wrens!

But wait – there’s more to the story…

Last week I saw a large, bright yellow bird trying to do a “carrier landing” on the hummingbird feeder. My assumption was that it might be a yellow-headed blackbird, since that’s the only large, bright yellow bird I’ve ever seen around here.

Wrong.

Yes, it’s bright yellow with some black highlights on the wings.

At first there were two of them, fighting over the feeder. I was amazed and figured they would both fly away as soon as I went near the window.

Nope, they were too busy fighting. Two males? A male and female? I don’t know, they were too backlit at first to see details, but the body shape was definitely new, not something I had seen before around here.

Amazingly, after the one flew off, the other completely ignored me, which gave me time to grab the good camera and move right up to the window with it. And yep, he was cleaning out the hummingbird feeder.

Well, that explains why Little Bastard has been in such a bitchy mood. Aside from the feeders being empty, while he’s a bully when it comes time to scare off other hummingbirds, this dude’s about ten times his size and just ignores him.

This dude hung out for several minutes, up close and personal, so there are lots of pictures to plug into the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell University. (Highly recommended!)

It’s a Hooded Oriole. Yes, YOU! Busted.

What a gorgeous bird! What a great sighting on a day that had it’s share of shit coming in from left field! Thanks, bird dude!

When last we saw our small and zippy avian heroes, there were a bunch of them around but one highly territorial dude which I had named Little Bastard because he constantly drives off all of the others.

So I was surprised to see this hummingbird (a female black-chinned hummingbird? best guess) in the bushes where Little Bastard always roosts.

She stayed back in the shadows, but I’ve seen her zipping around the yard for several days, usually being chased off after a quick hit on one of the feeders.

A week or so later, Little Bastard decided to sit still and pose in the sunbeams penetrating “his” fruit tree.

I think he’s a male Anna’s Hummingbird. The most prominent feature when you see him at the feeder or chasing other hummers away from “his” feeders is that brilliantly red head and chin area.

But as the branches bounced around and he would occasionally be in the sun, the color and iridescence on those feathers was astonishing. Here those “red” feathers seem to be bright yellow.

And here they’re bright orange.

And here it looks like a streak of green starting right under his beak and going downward!

The other really odd thing I saw today was him allowing other hummers at the feeders. At one point I was outside and saw seven or eight in the yard, with three or four feeding at a time while Little Bastard would occasionally chase one or two others around.

Did they figure out a way to gang up on him, letting some serve as decoys while the others feed? Did they finally beat up on him to take back control of the feeders? Or is there some other incomprehensible bit of hummingbird logic going on?

Who knows, but having a bunch of hummingbirds out there every day would be fantastic!

Crows. An airborne murder of them.

One of them starts the trouble, cackling and cawing and screaming something that I can’t quite understand.

The rest of the murder shows up, doing their best Eagles of Manwë impersonation.

They start filling up the neighbors’ trees, making an impressive racket in the process.

Not clear if they’re fighting, mating, or both. Strange are the ways of crows.

Like an avian gang of punk kid thugs, the show off, fight, try to impress everyone, then fly off to find another tree to do it all over in again.

And just like that…they’re gone! All of them! Lucy, Ricky, and the Four Amigos!

By Sunday they were getting rambunctious, and too big for the nest. The two with spots in the nest hunkered down and hid when I came out, but these two just froze and hoped I wasn’t a predator.

Monday they were all back in the nest for a while, but looking very fully grown-ish.

More to the point, they looked fully covered in feathers, which is sort of important for that whole flying thing, which is in turn sort of important for that whole bird thing.

Yesterday they were noisy as all get out, bothered by the chain saws and racket from next door. There was some occasional wing flapping and squawing, but last night it looked like they were all there. I had been keeping an eye out for anyone who might have fallen out and ended on the ground, but didn’t see any problems. I figured it might be a week before they flew off.

WRONG-O!

This morning when I got up it was immediately obvious that something had changed. No heads popping up looking for breakfast in bed, no squeaking and whistling, no hovering parents. Nothing.

I waited until this afternoon but then check it out up close and personal. The nest is vacant.

A couple of times this afternoon I saw a group of six fly down, do some feeding on the lawn, and then fly off. Was it Lucy, Ricky, and family? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?

As before, I’m going to assume that things happened the way they were supposed to and we now have a gazillion and four common house finches flitting about the back yard. If thing’s didn’t happen the way they were supposed to, well, that’s above my pay grade.

There’s another nest up on the other side of the porch that still has chicks growing and chirping, but they’re behind a speaker so I can’t really see them. One of these days it will grow quiet and I’ll know why.

And if I remember correctly, finches can have a couple of nests and broods per year, so we just have to wait and be patient for the next round. It won’t be long.

I managed to catch the finchlings all peeking out at once today. It’s getting crowded in that nest.

“MOOOOOM!! He’s touching me!!”

That explains so much of the noise coming from that direction.

They’re also looking more like birds with feathers and everything avian instead of weird, naked, pink squirmy things. Should we start a pool on which one flys first and when? I think it will be the one on the right, and probably about Wednesday this week.

It’s a lucky shot to catch them all. Normally these days they’re like cartoon birds. All four heads pop up in unison, take two seconds to look around to see if dinner is incoming, see me, and then pop right back down. It’s hilarious.