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The past week has been really hot here in southeast Texas, with highs getting pretty close to the 100F mark. We've been avoiding the heat and enjoying our air-conditioning but our birds have been suffering.
It has been toughest for the young birds, the ones born this spring and early summer. The juvenile Blue Jays have coped by puffing up their feathers to provide insulation from the heat but they haven't looked or sounded too happy about it.
Our young male and female Northern Cardinals have been looking stressed, too.
Their parents haven't looked like they're handling the heat much better.
Our White-winged Doves think that fanning out their wings and tails is the answer.
At least one of our Blue Jays has been trying out the same technique.
One odd thing about this is that our backyard is so small that the birds are never more than a few yards from a birdbath, which we keep full. The birds know it's there because lots of them come and drink from it. However, only one bird - a Blue Jay - seems to have taken full advantage of during the current heatwave.
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I took advantage of the MLK holiday to spend a couple of hours at Kleb Woods.
When I arrived, the air was absolutely filled with the calls and songs of common residents, such as Blue Jays, Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Northern Cardinals (below).
At the top of one tree, several Tufted Titmice were singing their hearts out.
The many seed-feeders were attracting large numbers of American Goldfinches while in some places the ground was swarming with Chipping Sparrows (below).
I finally saw my very first Downy Woodpecker of 2015, a bird I usually see in our yards virtually every day of the year. Unfortunately, this one didn't hang around for a photograph. The same was true of a flock of Scaly-breasted Munias, another new year bird.
At Home
Back at home I was surprised to find that our yards were busy. I had thought the bad weather of the first two weeks of 2015 would have brought them to our feeders but very few turned up until this weekend's better weather.
The feeders were busy with Chipping Sparrows, Carolina Chickadees, Orange-crowned Warblers and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet while the birdbath brought in several Yellow-rumped Warblers and a Northern Mockingbird. Our solitary thistle sock-feeder finally caught the attention of a couple of American Goldfinches.
There weren't any American Robins or Cedar Waxwings around but an Eastern Bluebird certainly made a nice showing against the blue sky.
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