Good day readers,
Welcome to June and the first rain for over a month! Hopefully this doesn’t dampen anyone’s spirits, but adds a bit more color to our everyday scenery. I should think that our birds, who are nesting, will welcome the damper change too. The last week of May was a little quieter, in terms of bird activity, but still very interesting. I caught a brief glimpse of a bird on the head of our waterfall statue, but have had great difficulty deciding what it is. My choice would be that it is a female Eastern Kingbird, or an Eastern Phoebe, the latter of which we don’t tend to get in the garden, but we do get the Kingbirds occasionally. They are both very similar looking “Flycatchers”, but without hearing their individual songs, or seeing them in flight, it makes it a very difficult choice. The Phoebe has a very definite call that sounds like its name being repeated over and over. I didn’t get to hear it sing, so can only guess!
Another unusual sighting at one of our feeders was a pair of House Finches who paid us a brief visit. Other garden bird sightings have been of both the Red-Breasted and White-Breasted Nuthatches, American Goldfinches, Eastern Bluebird, Cardinals, Red-wing Blackbirds, and the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers. The Ruby Throated Hummingbirds have not been too evident during the latter days of the month, but will probably be seen more once their young have fledged. Let’s hope so! The Bluebirds continue to tease us with their lack of commitment to using at least one of my nesting boxes! They will sit on top of one of them for a very long time and even take a look inside, but then nothing! However, one of them was spotted yesterday picking up some small twigs and then disappearing into a nesting box with them, so there is still hope! Their nesting box competing Tree Swallows have not been seen for a few days now, so they are probably well established somewhere else. Our House Wren is still singing his little heart out, but although at first very interested in a nesting box, he seems to have been a bit overwhelmed by the bigger birds and is trying somewhere else close by, but we haven’t spotted where yet. Enjoy your own birds and stay safe and well. Cheers!
John Baldwin
