Meanwhile, in Our Yards

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We took down all of our suet and seed feeders about a month ago. Not surprisingly, this means that not many birds have been visiting our yards.

One exception has been Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, since we have had maintained one hummingbird feeder throughout the summer. Last month this feeder was attracting a lot of attention from adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that were migrating through our area.

More recently, the feeder has been drawing in females and subadult males (below).

We put some suet and seed feeders back up last weekend, and also started putting out some sunflower seeds on our back fence. Almost inevitably, the first birds to appear were White-winged Doves and House Sparrows (below).

So the other day I was thrilled when a Mourning Dove turned up to check out the food situation. (Since White-winged Doves began visiting our yards in numbers some years ago, Mourning Doves have visited only rarely.)

Carolina Chickadees and a pair of Northern Cardinals have also come back to our yards but, as yet, we haven't seen the return of any Blue Jays, Northern Mockingbirds or Tufted Titmice. I hope we haven't driven them away for good!
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