My parents have an amazing backyard, thanks to my mom’s vision for choosing native bird-friendly plants and my dad’s careful maintenance. The last time I went over to visit, we went outside and sat on a bench to enjoy the local birds.

Our first bird was the best – a baby Brown Thrasher! We saw the parents running back and forth, gathering insects to feed 2-3 babies. As the baby grows a little more, he’ll start to look just like his parents, but we’ll still be able to tell them apart because the baby’s eye will be blue.

Meet Dad. He ran himself ragged to find insects to carry over to the babies. He wasn’t entirely sure of the three people watching him. We promised him that we didn’t want to bother his family.

A Northern Mockingbird was caring for babies also. We could hear the repeated cries of the babies from a distant tree. I couldn’t see the babies, but the parents gave me some good flight shots.

There was a lull in the action, and I saw a green anole in a nearby pineapple plant. I waited for him to show his red throat. I felt like a cat stalking a lizard…

Speaking of cats, you’ll be glad to know that we were well-supervised by my parents’ cat Precious. Remember the cute little kitten that they adopted last fall? She’s grown a lot! She’s practicing her ornithology skills to identify the birds in her backyard. Pretty soon she’ll start her own life list like Squirt and Whiskey!

Our last bird of the day was the hardest to photograph. We heard the Purple Martins flying overhead. Occasionally they would swoop down and fly closer to the backyard, but they were exceptionally hard to focus on. Here’s a male Purple Martin doing a mid-air dive!