I was really surprised the Ibis didn't fly off. I came barreling out the side door of the garage and took several steps before I noticed it. It was cool, though. I headed over to the butterfly garden to pick caterpillar food and he stayed in the lawn section, hopefully eating non-caterpillar insects. There were some bromeliads behind him so hopefully he managed to fish out any invasive Cuban Tree Frogs. I've got to get me a Sandhill Crane trained to eat those suckers. I saw one do it a few weeks ago but I interrupted him by accident. Still killed the frog, though.

I love those beautiful large birds! Mostly the very large birds we see around here are the Turkey Vultures!

mellielong said:I was really surprised the Ibis didn't fly off. I came barreling out the side door of the garage and took several steps before I noticed it. It was cool, though. I headed over to the butterfly garden to pick caterpillar food and he stayed in the lawn section, hopefully eating non-caterpillar insects. There were some bromeliads behind him so hopefully he managed to fish out any invasive Cuban Tree Frogs. I've got to get me a Sandhill Crane trained to eat those suckers. I saw one do it a few weeks ago but I interrupted him by accident. Still killed the frog, though.

I see Great Egrets nearly every day when I drive up the street. It's just hard to find a place to safely pull the car over, sometimes. And I don't always have the camera with me, but I'm trying to work on that. What's kind of sad is that I've attuned myself to look for flashes of white when I drive since Egrets and Ibises are so common. But most of what I see is litter.

mellielong said: What's kind of sad is that I've attuned myself to look for flashes of white when I drive since Egrets and Ibises are so common.

That's a good thing because some of our large Florida birds fly pretty low at times! A couple of weeks ago we were southbound on I-95 and an Egret almost hit our car! I'd feel really awful if we ever collided with one.

Linda, both pretty birds to see! I don't think I've ever seen an Inca Dove before!

The frog choir at our pond seems to have diminished ~ I think the Heron and Egret are eating really good.

Had to stop on one of the back roads of my neighborhood today to let three Sandhill Cranes cross. I totally had my camera in my bag but there was a car behind me. Two were adults and I think the third was an almost-adult. It was just a couple inches shorter but didn't have the red on the head like usual. But you could kind of see that the feathers were in some kind of transition period. Even when they're all adults, you often see the Sandhill Cranes in groups of 3-5.

There are prairie grass fields all around us and the Sandhills are always raising a ruckus out there. I can always tell when something threatens them because they have a holy fit.

A couple of weeks ago we saw a solo Sandhill which is very unusual ... made me wonder if possibly it's mate had been hit by a car.

Northern Cardinal's



Blue Jay's


Grackle? Starling?

The cherry tree in my side yard is absolutely loaded with cherries this year. I noticed them a few days ago all green and thought I will be picking cherries soon. Well, today they are turning ripe and a never ending series of Catbirds and Mockingbirds are eating them before they are anywhere near ripe enough to pick.

I don't mind sharing but now I know why there are never any cherries left for me to eat.

Oh Rita!

I remember planting this tree and then for a while it didn't do much. But now has really taken off and it such a nice cherry tree. It is in my mixed shrub boarder which has lots of bird attracting shrubs. I just naively thought I would have at least some cherries left for me!

They're onto you Rita. No cherries for you. I am surprised they eat them while still green though.

Reminds me of my old peach tree! It would make little peaches and then after a while, I'd find little green peaches lying on the ground...something had bitten, then discarded them! Some would make it to be larger, but usually all were gone before being ripe. Wildlife! Eventually borers killed the tree. Now I have a native mulberry by the shed, which produces berries every spring, and I even get to eat some ripe ones before the rest disappear. And pokeweed...the birds eat the berries with my blessing!

Newyorkrita said:I remember planting this tree and then for a while it didn't do much. But now has really taken off and it such a nice cherry tree. It is in my mixed shrub boarder which has lots of bird attracting shrubs. I just naively thought I would have at least some cherries left for me!

flaflwrgrl said:They're onto you Rita. No cherries for you. I am surprised they eat them while still green though.

They are leaving the green ones and eating the ones that are getting ripe. But not ripe enough to pick for me. I guess ripe enough for the birds to eat though.

I have so many things for the birds to eat. I have the serviceberries and the grey and silky dogwood berries. I have the Goumi berries which they go nuts over. I share the blueberries with the birds and the red currants also as the birds eat those so so do I.

I want the birds here and love to see them here in my yard. Maybe just leave me a bowl of cherries!

Extra visitor (or visitors?) to my hummer feeder last couple of days. I saw 3 birds, the Mom & Dad both drank from the feeder. The other bird was doing that fluffing of wings that chicks do and seemed very awkward when it tried to use the feeder. The parents went first to teach the youngster!
The juvenile Scott's Oriole:

Okay, but you have to tell us newbies what it is. That looks like a hummingbird feeder, but I'm pretty sure that's no hummingbird.