Posts Tagged ‘wild songbirds’
Bird Songs
When we stepped out the door yesterday morning, the songbirds were in full symphony. Initially, I noticed a red-bellied woodpecker making a repeated shout-out in a tree just overhead. In the background, we kept hearing a cheery melody that neither of us recognized.
Our bird ID app isolated it in no time as a Baltimore Oriole, a most welcome visitor to our property. These gorgeous birds are nowhere near as prevalent as the robins, cardinals, and 5 or 6 other common birds we see every day. After we identified the oriole’s distinct song, it became the soundtrack of our day.
Not only was the oriole vocal, but it also made a special appearance right outside our window. It likes the hummingbird feeder.
After getting our front yard mowed with the push mower, I went for a little bike ride to christen my new, more aggressive tread tires. To my great satisfaction, the difference in rolling resistance compared to my previous slick tires was difficult to discern.
They may roll like my old tires, but they definitely improved my confidence in coping with the wide variety of surface conditions, from rough pavement to occasional gravel. I decided to see how my legs would feel riding the entire time without battery assist. Oof da. I’m definitely not in long-distance riding shape. The many hills I needed to climb took a toll.
I take some solace in the fact that the ride didn’t entirely wipe me out for the rest of the day. Mowing resumed, using both the riding mower (which didn’t trip the error code –go figure) and the push mower. And all the while, the oriole was serenading us with its song.
We consider it a great treat whenever a less common visitor stops by, be it a songbird, pileated woodpecker, sandhill cranes, or any of the birds of prey that occasionally show up. They are all a lot more interesting than the rabbits, raccoons, and deer that are around all the time, and rile up Asher’s angst every time.
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Willow Buds
The maple sap should be flowing this weekend with our overnight temps dropping below freezing and daytime rising above. Yesterday, we noticed the big willow tree was looking rather anxious to be getting on with spring.
It inspired me to take a closer look at the buds getting ready to pop.
I sure hope the tree knows what it’s doing. Growing things don’t tend to waste time when the hours of sun increase in spring, and many of our trees look like they want to burst forth with leaves.
It breaks my heart when the weather messes with their timing and a hard freeze ends up killing new buds.
Reminds me what it’s like to have tariffs mess with my investment portfolio.
Instead of paying attention to that, because if I think about the state of things beyond the borders of our property it makes me cry, Cyndie brought out her bird-identifying app and we let her phone listen to all the birdsongs during our morning walk.
Of course, the song that was most prominent and wonderfully dramatic stopped as soon as she pulled out her phone. All the regulars were in full form but there were others of which I wasn’t aware and we couldn’t officially confirm.
Here’s a list of all the birds identified:
American Robin
Northern Cardinal
Blue Jay
American Crow
Red-winged Blackbird
Northern Flicker
Song Sparrow
Brown-headed Cowbird
Dark-eyed Junco
(later in the day… Red-Tailed Hawk)
I’d like to get a look at that Cowbird if it was truly present. We saw very few of these feathered friends listed while walking Asher. Without the use of an app for identification, it would all simply be the background soundtrack to our great outdoors.
Since we hadn’t made it to the barn yet, no pigeons were detected during the morning stroll but they are still around. Just not nesting in the eaves of the barn anymore.
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Feathered Alarm
Busy birds are building nests and doing their courting dances this time of year. Some of them need to establish their territories and discourage competition from other possible suitors. This year, more than any other previous time, more than one bird has taken to facing off against their reflections in our windows. The first year we were here, there was a cardinal that the sellers warned us about. He came back annually enough times that they eventually named him.
They named a variety of wildlife that made repeated visits, so that wasn’t so strange. Rodney the Cardinal showed up for about two years after we arrived and then vanished.
Now we are getting both Robins and Cardinals clacking their beaks against our windows. And not just the males.
Yesterday morning, a female Cardinal showed up at the door in our bedroom that opens to the back deck. Fluttering wings and a pecking beak tapping away at its reflection.
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the songbirds were. This one was tapping up and down on the full glass door as I was checking my phone for results from the MN Wild hockey game that went into overtime and forced me to go to sleep without knowing the result.
Cyndie’s morning sleep cycle was interrupted by the feathered alarm. That ultimately paid off for me because her earlier-than-usual start contributed to her feeling ready to join me in the morning feeding of horses for the first time since breaking her ankle last November.
I was really glad I had chosen not to keep watching the playoff hockey game after the third period ended with the score tied around 11:30 p.m. They ended up needing more than half of a second overtime period before one of the teams got the puck past the opposing goalie. The game ended at 1:00 a.m. and I had been in dreamland for an hour and a half by that time.
Happily, it was the Wild team that triumphed in game 1 of this best-of-7 first-round series of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Dallas Stars.
Game 2 happens tonight and I am hoping it gets decided in just 3 periods. As it is, games ending at 11:30 at night are already keeping me up past my healthy bedtime. Also, I’m not feeling up to the stress of watching the drama of sudden-death overtime hockey.
The Gopher hockey team losing their NCAA Championship game against Quinnipiac just 10 seconds into overtime did me in. I no longer have the fortitude to watch overtime playoff hockey. Not for a while, anyway.
Not while the wild birds are feeling a need to peck against our glass doors and windows at too-early-o’clock in the morning.
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Relative Something 