Birds!

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A heron flying in circles, pursued by a crow. For some reason.

The crow probably attacked its nestlings.

Blue jay came into the birding zone of my backyard and immediately started exerting dominance in the area .
By divebombing the the 2 alpha males of the group of Harris sparrows , And little finch looking birds .
The birdsongs went from happy and sing song like ,,,,to all about business. As soon as the Blue jay pair arrived.
I think blue jays just seem to have that as part of their nature . Plus have observed this same behavior with blue jays
Every year when they arrive .

Crows chasing a hawk out of the yard and the blue jays here are eating wads of black oil sunflower seeds out of the feeder.

Blue Jays were really cutting it up this morning. Calling and chasing around like crazy.

When the pileated woodpeckers zig zag east to west, the rising sun catches the white on their wings. They cut through the trees like Luke cut through canyons on Tatooine.

Parula warblers and white-eyed vireos calling.

Indigo Bunting arrived and at feeder.

I'm currently staking out my sandals in hopes of getting the culprit that is pulling the threads of their life away, on camera. He's quite sharp-witted, and just moving the blinds scares him away. Noisy Miner.

Operation...Needle and Thread.

Addendum: see avatar

Came across these while wandering down a YouTube rabbit hole -





And then this -



What a wonderful thing is a bird.

My best sighting of the week: a grey wagtail hunting insects. It had found a small cloud of midges and was flapping frantically in order to stay within it - wagtails aren't really built for hovering, but it was having a damn good try!

We get lots of birds here. Our ducks pretend to be cats to eat the cats food. Seagulls pretend to be ducks and sit amongst them and they look almost the same. Same colours and size. Just different beaks...


But for now here are some more birds!

Got a sparrow roosting up in the corner of my covered patio, up in a corner rafter. At night , been trying not to flush him/ her when I need to be on the porch .. The patio seems to have a red headed body , dark eyed and longer dark
Coloured beak .Otherwise a light shade of gray .medium sized bird . That has built a nest along the top if my fence where some vines have grown up along . And likes to flush and fly off to a nearby tree and squawk very loudly at me . But the nest is along the entryway to the patio/ front door . Scares me when it flaps and flushes from it nest .
Their seems to be a male and female guarding the nest .

I think the birds are happy about Spring .

Three interesting sightings in the last couple of weeks:

A Eurasian jay. Only the second time I've seen one properly. It was wandering around on the ground near buildings, but went and hid behind a tree as soon as it noticed me.

A juvenile bird of prey of some kind screeching endlessly as it sat on a chimney.

For the past couple of months, two large birds have been flying around squeaking very loudly at each other. I couldn't get a good look at them until the other day, when one of them settled on a nearby 4-storey building. Turns out they're oystercatchers, of all things. I've seen them before, but only foraging on the ground.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife ... tercatcher

One of my favorites, oystercatchers.

A very exciting morning. A pair of black-bellied whistling ducks flew into the yard, around the pond and perched on the grassy bank for 20 minutes or so before taking off again. They are rarely in my state. Big, easy to identify with bright red bills, organge feet, long necks and long legs, bright white on wings and of course, a big black belly. This is the first time i have seen them, here or anywhere. They nest in tree cavities and might be interested in the wood duck house, although no real sign of that.