This afternoon a flock of brown-headed cowbirds joined our regular red-winged blackbirds at the feeder. We didn’t even notice until the new customers started singing, and it sounded very different than our usual afternoon regulars. The male birds pigged out at the feeder, leaving the poor female birdies (like the one below) to sit in the trees and forage on the ground. These birds need to learn some manners!
Brown-headed cowbirds
The Garden Craze continues as I finished planting my “Carla Extension Bed” this weekend. I wanted to get roses at Lukas this weekend, too, but since they didn’t have the ones I wanted, I finally ordered them online. They’ll arrive bareroot in two weeks. I can’t wait to get some more plants into the nice big new rose bed! Until then I’ll keep enjoying my cool new camera as the butterflies start to return to the garden. Today I saw a Black Swallowtail and this Sachem on my verbena.
Sachem
We read that Wekiva Springs is a great place to bird-watch and hike.
It was the first time we’d ever seen a tufted titmouse.
Tufted Titmouse
I thought this was a robin at first, but then upon closer inspection discovered it was an Eastern Towhee. We didn’t get to hear it do its characteristic “Drink your tea!” call, though.
Eastern Towhee
This Gray Catbird was right up on the path, and I was photographing him, when somebody walked right in between us and scared him off. How rude!
Gray Catbird
It quickly became apparent that the birds just weren’t out today. We heard chickadees but couldn’t find them. In other places we didn’t hear birds at all. But the butterflies started to come out.
Common Buckeye
Juvenal's Duskywing