The weather here in the hill country has been outstanding for the last four days. The nights are so cold, in the high 40s to low 50s, that we have a huge dew. For two days, I looked out to see a fire in the oak trees. The escarpment live oaks have lots of ball moss on them and the sun comes up really red and catches the down hanging limbs.
The blacked chinned hummers almost hit me in the face when I take the dog out just at dawn. They are always active early but seem frantic to eat on these cold mornings.
The cardinals are early visitors to the feeders and add their song to the morning chorus. The barn swallows are soon sweeping over the fields. The house finches, black crested titmice and chickadees soon arrive at the feeders and are heard calling and singing. The Carolina wrens soon join in. We have a pair of them and they are always singing or calling to each other. Later, the resident yellow-billed cuckoo starts calling with his series of clicks and glugs and, as the morning progresses, morning, Inca, and European collared doves come to eat and call from the surrounding live oak trees or the
I take my coffee out for a morning tour of the garden. It is fresh and clean and glowing in the early sunlight. My nightly visitor has been back, digging around and in my lettuce bed. I think it is a skunk or a possum. We’ve spotted both when we drive up late at night.
But now it’s time for breakfast before working on my new meadow area where I’m storing assorted grasses and adding sunflowers.
Birdsong in the morning is wonderful. We have the same visitors plus we had a white eyed vireo singing for several days. It took an Audubon member to identify the song. Now it has gone away. We also had a visit from a pair of painted buntings but haven't seen them since. American goldfinches are feeding on the seeds of the gaillardia. The hummers are at the salvia. Isn't it uplifting that they want to visit our gardens?
ReplyDeleteYes. I am passionate about birds and have a list of plants that attract and have three nest boxes and water sources for them. I hoped to have a painted bunting pair stay around. Maybe next year when I'll have lots more and different kinds of grasses. But I do have several species of wrens, titmice, cardinals, and chickadees nesting. There is a summer tanager and red shouldered hawks in the area. And I have a yellow billed cuckoo that seems to have to have taken up residence.
ReplyDeleteI'm keeping track of as many yard birds as I can photograph in albums on Webshots. You might want to check out the April album. I think I had 4 or 5 species in one of my feeders at once.
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