Lazy Weekend

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In advance I was determined to fit in some serious birding on the weekend. In the event, I decided to stay home and do some gardening. As it happened, though, this led to my seeing quite a few birds.

On Saturday, we were getting ready to go shopping when we noticed through the window a yellowish bird near the hummingbird feeder in our front yard. I grabbed a camera and managed to get one shot before the bird flew. It was a young male Baltimore Oriole, only the second Oriole we've seen in our yards in the ten years we've lived in Cypress.

The hummer feeders in both of our yards have been the scene of intense activity, with a couple of male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds trying to defend them and some flowering plants from numerous other males and females.

Some of our squirrels seem to enjoy the hummingbird wars.

All of our normal resident birds (except Northern Mockingbirds) have been visiting our feeders regularly. I was particularly pleased to see female and male (below) Downy Woodpeckers coming to our suet feeders again after somewhat of an absence.

While I was less pleased to see how many House Sparrows our feeders now attract, I did quite enjoy watching up to six of them at a time squeezing into our birdbath.

On Saturday I noticed that a Pileated Woodpecker was fussing around in a neighbor's yard. The next day I managed to get a quick photo of it in another neighbor's tree. What imposing-looking birds they are!

The weekend was also good for small migrating birds, as we spent a while watching a Black-and-white Warbler and a couple of Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers in one of our neighbors' tree. (The same tree also had a Yellow Warbler and a Red-eyed Vireo.) We were thrilled when the Black-and-white flew across into our yard.

No doubt I would have seen more migrants if I had done a birding trip. However, I don't regret staying home because there's something really enjoyable about seeing birds in and around your own yards.
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