Good to be home again

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It's taking me quite a time to sort through the photos from our Barcelona trip, even though good bird photos from the trip are disappointingly few and far between. I hope I'll be ready to do another Ebro Delta blog tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying seeing what's turned up here over the past two weeks.

Home
I've only been able to spend a few minutes in our yards today but I was thrilled to get plenty of opportunities to watch a very active Ruby-crowned Kinglet. They move around so quickly and unpredictably that they're really tough to photograph!




A Northern Mockingbird turned up at one suet feeder, making our male Downy Woodpecker move to the elm tree.




A little later, the elm was visited by our Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.


As always, the yard had several squirrels.


College
The start of the Nature Trail is fairly quiet, perhaps because the Cooper's Hawk is still haunting it.


However, the trees there have White-winged Doves, Northern Cardinals, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Orange-crowned Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers. This morning also saw our FOS American Robin and a FOS Lincoln's Sparrow.

There are still plenty of dragonflies and butterflies around, too.


Our resident Red-tailed Hawks continue to spend a lot of time hanging out on the utility pylons.

The path from the Nature Trail to the soccer fields is lined with very noisy Sedge Wrens. An Eastern Phoebe is hunting along the path but frequently gets moved on by one or other of our innumerable Northern Mockingbirds.

N. Mockingbird

The trees where the path meets the soccer fields had a small flock of FOS American Golfinches today, as well as another Lincoln's Sparrow.

The Killdeer, European Starlings and Common Grackles are now having to share the soccer fields with a flock of a dozen Savannah Sparrows.

The retention ponds on Barker Cypress Road are quiet except for the Great Egret and Snowy Egret which enjoy fishing a few yards apart at the water's edge.

P.S. Walking through the undergrowth at work this morning, I enjoyed feeling that it is now much too cold for snakes. Then a groundskeeper told me that a 5 ft. rattler is currently spending its days along the path between the Nature Trail and the soccer fields!