All beautiful, Lin, but that squirrel pic is a classic! Congrats!

I love that squirrel pic!

It rained yesterday all day. Got over 3 inches with some hail last night at 11pm. The poor birds were cold and wet.

They do look bedraggled, don't they, Becky? But at least they're feasting, courtesy of your kindness!

Thanks y'all! I thought that squirrel was pretty funny with a sunflower seed in it's mouth.

We finally got some much needed rain here today as that front pushed south! We were under a tornado warning for a short while so I hunkered down in the downstairs bathroom with both dogs until the storm passed. So many areas of the southeast U.S. were hit really hard by those storms, trees down, power out and homes destroyed by tornadoes ... and flooding.

Becky, Oh my ... those little birdies sure are soaking wet but still so cute and so lucky to have you supplying a meal or two!

cliftoncat said:A pair of mallards have moved into residence in/by our small pond, I think they must be nesting there.

Beautiful picture Mika, it almost looks 3D on my computer!

Thanks, Joanna!

Scot, what great shots of the Sandhill Cranes with their young; love those sweet, fluffy babies and their knobby knees. We usually see a pair of Sandhills in our neighborhood and one day last week there was a single bird really making a racket, as if calling for it's mate. I'm hoping they just got separated for a short time but sometimes we see a dead one alongside the road. My husband commutes to Daytona for work twice a week and when he got off the interstate yesterday evening he said there was a fender bender right in front of him on county road 512; a car had stopped for birds crossing the highway and someone rear ended them and then another car rear ended that one. No one was hurt and my husband said he saw smoke from brakes so he was able to stop in time but just barely missed getting hit from behind himself.

Mika, I love that beautiful scene with the Mallard pair; I bet they indeed are nesting there and who could blame them, it's the perfect spot!

Robert, love your parkway photos as always. You really get some great close up shots that show the gorgeous feathers of those Mallards! Beautiful Robin too and I love seeing the grandparents

Beautiful, breezy, cool day here in Florida! I filled the feeders about 7:30 this morning and an hour later they were empty ... danged Squirrels!!!

At least the squirrels left some suet for the Woodpeckers to enjoy. This female finally figured out that the front side of the feeder still had a suet cake:



There were some Crows down the road in a big pine tree earlier today:

The other day I was delighted to see a hermit thrush in my yard for the first time (that I know of):


I haven't been taking many photos this month (yet) but now I'm inspired to pick it up again. I have loads of photos of chickadees, juncos, woodpeckers, robins, jays and band tailed pigeons from earlier this year and late last year, but things are warming up here so some of my friends don't need quite as much of the supplemental food. The suet and seed is lasting a lot longer, which makes me happy and sad at the same time. I miss you, woodpeckers! I'm so happy you have more bugs to eat, though! But I miss you!

Since I was not able to get to the parkway today, we will continue with some more heron images from eleven days ago. Our big bird wound up perched on top of a large broken tree limb:

Then, after checking to assure that I was ready to capture it, our feathered friend decided to move down the limb a bit. This was not quite as straight forward as one might expect. Herons may appear graceful in the air, but when the change elevations using their feet, it seems that they often have to use their wings to maintain balance:

@Joolie, what a cute little Hermit Thrush! Please don't hesitate to share older photos, we love bird pic's no matter the year or time of year they were taken! It's always interesting to see birds from different areas of the country and the world!

@marsrover Robert, that heron is so beautiful; I love the shots showing their wings spread. It looks like it's trying to balance as it gets ready to pounce on a fish.

Chipping Sparrow aka Jack Sparrow
No, you can keep your dinner, Jack !
Triad area North Carolina

What are you doing? One of a family of SHCs curious about where this squirrel was headed. ( taken in Central Florida )

Still hunting for Scot's SHC pics.
--
Found Scot's SHCs .. memories from when I lived in FL - thanks. We used to call the young one '' Eggs with Legs " ..
Oh, and those Osprey ! Magnificent birds .. y'all are making me miss my Herons and all the other big birds.
Has anyone found a Limpkin ? Beautiful brown feathers with white mixed in and usually eats Apple Snails.

Peggy, my Limpkins aren't in their usual areas because we're in the dry season right now.

I saw two Sandhill Crane families on the way to Starbucks today! At first, I thought it was the one I saw the other day and I thought, "Hmm...they've moved a little south." But I thought the babies looked a little smaller. Then, I turned on the street where I saw the ones last week and they were there! And their babies are indeed taller. But it's great to know there are two families in the area.

Speaking of pairs, I stopped to talk to Dad before I left and he was watering the plants that we planted yesterday. Mostly him; I supervised because I feel awful. We saw a hummingbird yesterday hitting up my Salvia 'Amistad'. I did manage to refill the feeder. So today as I'm walking over, I see the hummingbird coming for the feeder. Except he sees me and swerves to one of the Salvia 'Amistad' (I have two). I freeze, and then he goes to the feeder, then he hits up the other 'Amistad'. Dad sees it, too! And we're like We talk for a few minutes as Dad's watering and back comes the hummingbird. Except this time, another hummingbird comes and chases him off into the oak tree! They both seemed to go up into the oak so I don't know what the second one was doing. It's not like it went to the feeder so maybe it's just a territorial thing? A few minutes later, and a male hummingbird was back on the 'Amistad' farthest away from where we were standing. Then, it zoomed back to a different oak tree. I'm going to have to do a stakeout and see if I can get some pictures.

I was reading an article yesterday about Lubber Grasshoppers. I just spotted (and killed) my first three in the neighbor's yard. I read that Loggerhead Shrikes like to eat them, and now I'm wondering how to rent some Shrikes. I need Doctor Doolittle powers, I tell ya!

Peggy, love the little Chipper! We used to see a lot of the Chipping Sparrows during winter when we lived in Daytona Beach. The last Limpkins I saw was during the summer of 2015:

mellielong said: I was reading an article yesterday about Lubber Grasshoppers. I just spotted (and killed) my first three in the neighbor's yard. I read that Loggerhead Shrikes like to eat them, and now I'm wondering how to rent some Shrikes. I need Doctor Doolittle powers, I tell ya!

Mellie, if you get those powers please don't hesitate to share how we all can get a little of that magic too! My sister lives down the street from me and my brother in law told me that they've seen those lubbers in their yard ... I told him to please, kindly keep them down there! Maybe our dogs will eat them it they show up in my yard ... they will eat anything!

A few minutes I heard the loud screeching of Sandhill Cranes. The weather is so nice that all the windows are open and it sounded like they were right outside the window so I grabbed my camera and went outside. They were in the front yard and one came walking right up to me ... I only let it get within a couple of feet and I went back in the screen door to the atrium but I did manage to get a few pictures.

It is a lovely day here in Florida. Probably the last one we'll have until October so I hope everyone enjoyed it.

I saw some interesting bird behavior twice today. First, I was out front watering the plants when I heard an awful racket. It was coming from behind the neighbor's house. I looked up and it looked like two Crows were chasing what appeared to be two Hawks (I could be wrong) out of the area. There was a lot of squawking and wing-flapping. One Crow returned to behind the house pretty fast, but the other kept chasing the other birds. Hmm...

Now, today I was on hummingbird watch. Literally set my lawn chair by the butterfly garden where the feeder is and just sat and enjoyed the view. And we'll get to some pictures in a moment. But what caught my eye was again when I was out front watering the plants. I heard the hummingbird so I started looking around. My neighbor next to me has a Firecracker Fern they love so I looked over there and sure enough, there was the hummingbird. Except it wasn't nectaring. It was dive bombing! It flew down and back up in a parabola shaped arc about eight times before it flew back to the tree. Is that how they catch insects? It was so weird - I've never seen one do that before! It was super cool, though.

Okay, to give you some perspective, here's my foot in the frame of my butterfly garden. I cut back the pentas pretty hard yesterday so it doesn't look as full as usual. I have Salvia 'Amistad' planted on each front corner, and the hummingbird feeder is next to the far one.



I need to get out there earlier (yeah, right) because my camera was telling me it was taking "backlight" photos. But I was trying to sit in the shade while also not sitting too close to the feeder. So not my best pictures, but you can at least tell it's a hummingbird.

It must be mating time for the Limpkin as I hear its loud wailing cry non stop day and night.

I GOT ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taken from inside, I couldn't move fast enough when I saw it, Sol the squirrel, who has started coming on my upper deck, he will be shown the error of his ways, got my attention, and there were some small birds skittering around on the ground, and then I saw this:



If I had opened the door, he would have been gone, he left fast enough anyway, there's another one, and I think they're scoping out the grounds to see if this is a trap or not. At least that's what the voices in my head tell me.

Is that the woodpecker that flipped me off the other day?? Or any other woodpecker? Or what?