Beating the Heat

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It's hot now that summer is definitely here, and we've had very little rain lately. So our resident birds should be flocking to our bird baths. Surprisingly, this hasn't been the case.

The birdbath in our backyard is positioned high enough to be safe out of the reach of cats. However, our White-winged Doves have been reluctant to approach it, preferring instead to stretch out on the roof of our shed.

In desperation I added a solar-powered water bubbler, which I thought would be irresistible. While not exactly iresistible, it has at least encouraged some of the birds to come down for a drink.

 

In another attempt to help the birds get through the summer, I recently put a Talavera ceramic birdbath on our front lawn.

Perhaps because it is so brightly colored, the birds have generally avoided it. In fact, the only bird that I've seen use it in two weeks was an American Robin.

So, thus far at least, our birds don't seem to feel the need to use our birdbaths.  

On the Move

I probably won't be posting a lot for the next week or so, because we'll be on vacation. We're starting off with a night in Las Vegas, followed by early morning birding at a nearby sewage plant. After that, we'll have a few days in Cedar City, Utah. Then we'll have a couple of days in Salt Lake City before driving back down to Vegas. Most of the vacation will be spent visiting family and friends, but I expect I'll fit in some short birding trips here and there.
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