Sunflower Community

Red Winged Blackbird, Laughing

Perched hummingbird

House finch perched on the left, hummingbird perched on the right

Female Diana fritillary, top side

Bumblebee and Diana fritillary

Female Diana fritillary, underside

Ruby throated hummingbird

Male and female hummingbirds

A little "in-flight video". Sorry about the dust on the lens!

Hummingbird Haven

 

This year I let the birdseed grow itself under the feeders.  It's created a lovely bed of sunflowers.  Birds hop around under cover of the stalks at ground level.  To be honest, Barnard enjoys crouching down on the perimeter and stalking the birds, but she's never caught one or even pounced, as far as I can tell.

 The hummingbirds can often be found perching on the sturdy stems of the sunflower leaves!

Hummingbird activity is up in the past week or so.  All day long at least two of them swoop and dive around the feeder.  Sometimes one hides in the flowers, waiting until the other comes to drink, then explodes up out of the cover to scare the other off.  There is nothing peaceful about hummingbirds!  If you look really, really closely at the photo above, right along the left edge, you'll see a hummer flying into view.

I'll help:

Aren't they terrific?!

On Mothers Day

Saturday afternoon I discovered this birds nest has a direct exit to the outdoors.  I thought all the nests in the barn were accessed from indoors.  Using the telephoto lens, I explored a little further and discovered...

Someone always needs a mother!

Happy Mothers Day!

Morning has Broken, 10

There's a war going on at Busy Solitude Farm.  (No, not that war in the barn.  That's a different conflict.)  It's the Sugar Water War, fought each year by the male hummingbirds whose territoriality is legendary.

This little guy is currently "King of the Mountain."

He perches on the hook, looking all around for the challengers.  Currently there are two challengers.  Three beautiful boys fighting mid-air, screeching and zipping, to control the sugar water and win the ladies' hummingbird hearts.

You can watch a little bit of the zipping here. 

Every once in a while they pause and all refresh themselves with sugar water.  Which makes it appear to be more of a collegial exercise rather than blood sport.

I hope the ladies are impressed.

Hummingbird!

This morning I saw my first hummingbird of the year!  (That's not it, that photo is from last summer.)  Others reported hummers in Michigan since early April.  I replaced my broken feeder, boiled up some sugar water, and then waited.  And waited.

I did notice that the water level was going down -- but the storms and wind might have been responsible for that.  At least that's what I thought. 

Until this morning!

I sat on the back step, drinking my coffee with Luke warming my lap.  Suddenly, ZIP!  BUZZ!  And there helicoptering around the feeder... a hummer!  It drank and drank, then zipped over to the clothesline and perched for a minute.  How I wished I had my binoculars in hand.  Or my camera.  But all I had was a cup of delicious coffee, much needed after last night's Cinco de Mayo margarita. 

Oops, that's another story.

After a rest on the clothesline, the hummer zipped back to the feeder and then off across the yard.  Where did it go?  I hope to tell the other hummers it's time to get back to Busy Solitude Farm!

Can summer be far off?

Birdwatching

Recently the barn swallows celebrated another Fledge Day.  As I observe these days, suddenly as if out of nowhere, eight or ten adult barn swallows converge on the yard, swooping and hollering.  The young'uns, who have practiced perching and just a bit of gliding, make it outside to watch.  But as the grown-ups demonstrate what fun flying is (and it must be, mustn't it?), the young'uns are gradually overcome with desire to leap into the air and let their wings do their thing.

Then all eight or ten adults fly into formation around the young'uns, giving them the freedom to get the hang of it without worrying about hawks or flying into trees or the side of the barn.

It's a magnificent ritual for a sunny summer day.  And by nightfall, all the swallows will have left the barn.  I do not know where they live once they have fledged.  But they come back every evening to swoop and eat bugs.  And maybe, just maybe, the little ones tell the others "that's where I grew up!"

On another front, I've been observing the local hummingbirds through my living room window.  For about a month there seemed to be just one, but about a week ago I realized three were vying for position.  None has a ruby throat -- perhaps they're all young.  The most interesting behavior I've seen is that one of them will perch in the vine growing up the shepherd's hook.  See it there towards the top?

Then when another comes to drink at the feeder, the hidden one bursts out and chases it.  I've read that hummers are very territorial, so this may well be aggressive behavior, but it appears quite playful.

Of course they fly so fast, I was not able to catch their race in any of my photos.  But they are so involved in this competition that I can sit in a lawn chair not ten feet away and watch the action.  At times all three of them race back and forth, zooming over the roof or around the corner.  Then number one returns to its hiding place, and eventually the game begins again.

Who needs TV?!

Who do you think?

I drive to work on a country road surrounded by fields. These days, the plows have left piles of dirty snow all along the road, three or four feet high in most places.

This morning I sped along listening to NPR. My concentration was (sadly) on the economic crisis, so my gaze left and right did not focus on anything much. After all, the landscape was just so much dirty snow.

Or was it?

Suddenly, as I drove past, one chunk of snow turned its head ever so slightly to follow my movement.

Who do you think?

A Snowy Owl, aka Great White Owl or Bubo scandiacus! People talk about seeing owls, but I'd never seen one out in a field. It was perched, I didn't see it fly, but it was magnificent in its presence and glorious in its bright white plumage. How I wish I'd had my camera. This photo is the same owl caught by Josh Haas (see his website here).

I always wonder how little sparrows and finches keep warm in the dead of winter. The owl appeared to be quite still and comfortable sitting on the banked snow. Peering around, searching for a mouse, pointedly ignoring me.

I smiled the rest of the way to work.

Addendum February 7: Bird-brained friends Charley and Natalie report seeing the snowy owl just across the street from where I saw him -- so he's still in the area!