Always a winner and a looser.

Unfortunately yes ... I know the hawks gotta eat too.

Backyard visitors this afternoon:

Lin, you seem to have a lot of those Morning Doves visiting. Me too, they are common around here. And they are ground feeders so love it when I put the seed out on the driveway.

Rita: We have Mourning Doves and Ground Doves here year-round. I occasionally see one perched on a feeder but most of the time they feed on the ground. I think the more rambunctious birds keep them away from staying at the feeders.

We have lots of Northern Mockingbirds this year. Babies have fledged the nest and it's so much fun watching and listening to those hungry younguns' screeching and crying for food. The babies are flying great but they still want mama to feed them.

Blue Jays visit the feeders every day and I've seen a few young ones lately too; Jays love peanuts!

Mr. Red-bellied WP stopped for breakfast this morning:

White Ibis walking through the backyard this morning:

Those baby mockingbirds are too cute. And of course they want mom to feed them. Much easier than finding your own.

Wonderful photos Lin!

Yesterday I saw a juvenile Mockingbird picking at something on the neighbors roof. The adult had just fed it so it was probably the remnants of a worm or something. There've been a lot of Grackles fledging lately too; I see the juveniles on the ground beneath the feeders as the adults are perched on the feeders. The youngsters are always screaming to be fed by mama. They've been eating seeds on the ground too but it's so funny seeing them screaming to be fed!

juvenile Mockingbird this morning:

Aww...how sweet.

I've been enjoying the great bird pics. Here's a few I took. I was trying to get a pic of another kind of bird when four Brown-headed cowbirds came and chased it off. Geez, the size of that chick! It looks really big! So I wonder, do the chicks raised by other species just find its own kind right away as soon as it is able to get around well? The foster mother probably said to herself "Whew! I thought that chick would never leave, what a little piggie!"

I caught the Black-crested Titmouse with a big seed in its beak (or maybe it had more than one), I think it was afraid of dropping it, so it landed on an Ashe Juniper Tree to avoid that.

Linda, your pictures are really wonderful! I think the cowbirds are pretty and I love the one of that fat chick! I can only imagine what another bird thinks when a cowbird egg hatches in it's nest. It amazes me that they will feed a baby other than their own but I guess since the egg was left in their nest and they incubated it, it is kinda their own ... even if it is three times the size of their babies!

Love that Titmouse too!

A few pictures from earlier today.

Male Red-bellied Woodpecker:



Blue Jay:


Boat-tailed Grackle:

Interesting question Linda as to if the cowbird fledglings find their own right off the bat.

I found this:
http://news.nationalgeographic...

Who knew?

Ann, that's a very interesting article...thanks for finding it! I DO wonder about the "cattle, horses, bison, and lawn mowers" areas that they are said to prefer, since I have none of those! But neighbors have lawn mowers and at least one family has horses. Then there's a very large parcel of land near the subdivision (formerly a ranch) that's been for sale for quite a while after a developer was prevented from putting houses with relatively small lots on it.
Love the woodpeckers and bluejays, Lin. The grackles are fine-looking birds.. not birds I want around here, but that's just because I used to live in the city, and they can be a problem there.

LindaTX8 said:Ann, that's a very interesting article...thanks for finding it! I DO wonder about the "cattle, horses, bison, and lawn mowers" areas that they are said to prefer, since I have none of those! But neighbors have lawn mowers and at least one family has horses. Then there's a very large parcel of land near the subdivision (formerly a ranch) that's been for sale for quite a while after a developer was prevented from putting houses with relatively small lots on it.
Love the woodpeckers and bluejays, Lin. The grackles are fine-looking birds.. not birds I want around here, but that's just because I used to live in the city, and they can be a problem there.

I think what they were saying Linda, but they didn't say it very well, either that or the author didn't translate it well; is that cowbirds were native to the midwestern US but all this urban sprawl has allowed them to spread *throughout* the US. I know they were unheard of in south Fl. until recent years. So now they have become spread all over the US instead of just being in the midwestern states.