About a month ago......

I told you about a couple of mourning doves hanging around our back yard. They seemed fearless, even when the dog walked by. Lately I haven't noticed them. I assumed they left. Then while my husband, Gene, was trimming the bush, he saw the nest. I was excited, but as I searched the Internet, I quickly became sad again. It seems mourning doves don't leave their nest much and take turns sitting on the eggs. I figured they must have abandoned the nest, or were killed. I saw no evidence of them being killed, but it seems strange the eggs are just sitting there. Then my husband said he saw one of the birds come around as he was sweeping. I am happy again! Maybe we will have babies! I will keep you posted. We also have a family of barn owls in our neighborhood. Every night we walk and in a palm tree up the street there is loud squawking. I mean ALL night long. I can't believe the people on that street enjoy the continual squawking, but I love looking for them. Last year, around this time, I remember seeing 2 young ones in a big tree branch just over the sidewalk. It was such a blast shining the flashlight up and watching them. We had the whole neighborhood out to gaze up at them. This year we haven't seen them that close. We catch sight of one on the telephone pole and see "eyes" gleaming back at us in the palm tree (it is probably 80 feet up) and occasionally we see the mom fly by. I often wonder how many nests are around us?

Which reminds me of a funny story.....when my son was in high school biology, he had to dissect owl pellets. The teacher was a great guy and went out of his way to teach wonderful things like that. (he would go to a place much like the one I described above and look for the owl pellets) Anyway, he explained that you can find bones and encouraged the kids to try and find a whole skeleton. Since my son was our second child, and we knew he would be doing this in class, I had the idea that my son should take this miniature toy human skeleton he had from a magic kit and when the time came he should say "I have a whole skeleton!"....which he did. The teacher, so excited came over to see! And then roared with laughter!

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on the mourning doves.....cross your fingers!
Both parents are there now.....looking very proud!

Severe empty nest syndrome!

Well.....our nest was successful! I am sorry to say, we don't have too many great pictures. Who knew Mourning Doves were so secretive? This appears to be one of the 2 babies that was in the nest. If you saw my previous post, there were two eggs, which is common for Mourning Doves. I did get to see a parent feed a baby on the fence behind our home, but they were gone before I could get a picture. After reading up on the birds, I feel privileged to have had a successful nest. It seems they don't always produce.

With that said, I must admit, I was a little bummed because I could not really enjoy them on a daily basis. When the little house finches nested by our back door (ruining our light by the way), you could watch the parents fly in and out and feed their young. Being the typical selfish person I am, I figure if you are going to use my yard, let me watch!

This appears to be the adults on the roof of our home.

And this is the empty nest!

I'm getting freaked out....

So I have been sharing the wild life around my home and I am starting to get a little freaked out. There are tons of birds...and now CROWS!

I open the front door the other morning and low and behold a huge crow was drinking out of our little fountain. Then last week as we came home, there was another crow in the fountain....it wouldn't even move out of the way. Now this morning there was this guy up on our roof! (Not to mention the baby doves on the patio) I must admit, if I was superstitious I would be worried that the crow are taking over.....

I'm still here!

You have read how I feed lots and lots of birds! We've seen Mourning Doves, Starlings, House Finches, Purple Finches, Scrub Jay, Rock Pigeon, House Sparrow, Humming Birds, Mocking Birds, Great Horn Owls and even Coopers Hawks! So, the other day I looked out my window and I said...."Gene, I think there is a hawk out side!"

Now I was a little sad that we feed the birds and here was a hawk that was looking for a quick meal! I figured all the birds had flown away. But as I watched, I noticed he was calking his head this way and that appearing to be listening.


He's listening on each side of the fence....then suddenly there was a quick jump down to the feeder below. As you can see there is a lot of cover from seeds that sprouted up from the dropped seed.



He's on the feeder listening. Apparently some little birds were down on the ground either hiding from him or not aware of him above them. Then he jumped down to the ground. I lost tract of him, but when he re-emerged he had a little sparrow in his claw!


Thanks for all you faithful readers! I'm still here and I hope you find your way back to me! I hope to have a great give a way soon! Keep reading!

I did a little research. He is a Cooper's Hawk and he did the hunting exactly as they say they do! Read about him here.

Visitors

I love it when ducks come around our neighborhood!  I guess it is the time of year when they pair up.  How fun is this?  I wonder how great it would be to live where there are lots of wild life? 

Little surprises like this always bless me! 

We also have our yearly Mourning Doves!  I often wonder if they are related year after year!

Backyard feeder

I don't know why, I love feeding the birds! Almost as fun as taking pictures of the birds. The other day, I set up my camera on a tripod and tried to get pictures of the birds. They were not to excited to come with the camera contraption set up

I'm not sure what the problem is...that looks completely normal to me! Well, the birds did not like me sitting there, so I had to move all of this inside on the other side of the patio door and hide behind the drapes.

Here are some photos as a result. I love this one with the bird in flight.

The auto focus on the Nikon D40 was more focused on the bird feeder, but you see there is a mourning dove and a finch or house sparrow.



I wish I got a better picture of the blue jay, but they are a little nervous. That is the only one I could muster! I wish we had more exotic birds in our area. In my yard there are mostly jays, mocking birds, (however I never see them at the feeder) mourning doves, various finches and sparrows. I know there are other birds crows, starlings, black birds, etc. but they never come. We don't have those pretty birds like cardinals, orioles, buntings, etc. We do have owls and hawks but of coarse we don't see them at the feeder, at least not in a positive way!

Well, that is what I do on Thursdays, along with my laundry. I figured you would rather see that than the piles of dirty cloths laying in my garage! Happy Thursday all!

We feed the birds

We feed the birds in our back yard and last week, while we were doing yard work, we saw this nest. Not sure what is in it, as it is high in the tree. But thought it was a neat nest! In the past, I have been able to catch the mourning doves and other birds as they hatch. This time, I guess I can't look!

We have guests!

The Last few days we have been woken up to the sounds of mourning doves. A couple has decided to nest in a rather old bush near our bedroom window. We have a window air conditioner in that window to get the room extra cool. No matter how low we keep the central air, it is never cool enough for me and my M.S. Anyway.....one dove sits on the air conditioner and one is usually on the pool deck. Our dog Momo just walks by like nothing is going on. It is a strange relationship. My Siberian Huskies would have killed them by now. They must have a nest in that bush, but I have not gotten close enough to investigate. In the past we have had nests of other birds like the mockingbird and house finch. I like this couple because they don't attack my dog, like the mocking birds do/did. A few years ago a finch decided to make a nest on our out door light. It was so fun and cute to watch them raise several chicks however they were not great nest builders. We had to support the nest. The problem was our light never worked after that. We had to have an electrician come and put a new one in. I feel it is a small price to pay to watch nature up close!

I'd like to think we are hospitable

It was a pretty wet dreary day yesterday. I was going to say miserable, but I love days like today. You can see by our pool, it is pretty messy and wet. While looking over the yard and wondering why Hanford doesn't have condos I saw this

I'd like to think we are hospitable and the same doves have come back! (It could happen) Anyway, there he/she sits. But wait...

I spy a mate! Coming to snuggle!


Thinking about resting...


Rest!


I feel so bad for them in the rain. But they look content...