Hummingbird
This ain’t easy. It’s darned hard to catch a hummingbird. I got one decent shot in a dozen tries. Lucky. As I said it ain’t easy.
Flight time
Our barn swallows reached maturity. They will soon be gone. Four hatchlings flew about and landed on our chair. Three lined up as if they were in their nest. The other was independent. Somehow, they were nonplussed by my presence. No one flitted away. I just slowly walked forward and got my close-ups. Thanks guys. I hope to see you in the neighborhood again. When we returned later I could see more than four birds swooping about. It seems that siblings and family have made our house their home.
Ready to fly
This group of barn swallow babies grew up overnight. They had a great steady diet of worms and are about to fall out of the nest. There’s simply no room left. I shall miss them. Fly away! Be safe! Come again and raise babies of your own.
Cardinal
The bird flashed by my peripheral vision. Nice! It stayed still long enough for about two shots. It’s fascinating that the plumage is not more noticeable. But even the male blends right in to the foliage. Colleen doesn’t believe it. It does seem that the plumage of the cardinal changes with the season.
Baby
There are osprey nests all along the road. We stopped to view the parents and their newborn. How nice! I see one parent or another, but rarely the offspring. Lucky! We didn’t see the little one the next day.
Return, return
So, the first batch of swallows hatched and left in early July. Another pair came back and hatched a new brood. Wow! Yay! We now have more than a few swooping birds around our balcony. I don’t see another nest. I wonder if the whole extended family will remain close by?
Barn swallows
They came back. A pair of swallows made a nest last year. I have posted before on the earlier set. Now the parents returned to hatch a new brood. Lucky us. This time everyone got big and flew the nest without incident. Last year one little fellow fell and was rescued and taken to the bird rescue people. They were gone so quickly I hardly had a chance to get any images.
Birds of a feather…
Ok, it’s not a shout out to Wawa. There is a certain need to build a nest at a certain time. But location, location, location? This is a bit extreme. At least I would not want to be out where everyone can see. Why not a tree? Or, are other predators put off by all the people around?
Back
They came back. We have had a pair of barn swallows carefully build a nest under the eave of the balcony over my garage. They hatched five baby birds last year. The last one required rescue. It couldn’t fly and was pushed out of the nest to the ground. It was a harrowing rescue for us. This year they hatched five more in the same nest. They all successfully flew off in early summer. Now, it’s midsummer and we see barn swallows swooping about our balcony. Staying close to home? No, it appears there is another batch of babies. This set of parents are way more tolerant of me standing below to take pictures. The last time around the parents would swoop away and dive bomb me each time I approached. It’s nice to see the parents are more mellow especially as the only rental requirement of the nest is that I get a pic of the newborns.
Turkey
Okay! Now for something completely different. There was a magical Thanksgiving dinner when I was working in Maine. We had just sat down to dinner when a group of wild turkeys strolled past our window in plain view. Ummm, that would be a fitting argument to become vegetarian. However, I have only seen male turkeys rarely and never fanning their tails. Wow! Do you believe this? … in the back yard. … just for me!
