Cormorant spreading it's wings to take off from the water, a pair of Doves in the Cypress tree and a Red-winged Blackbird at the feeder:
We have Northern Mockingbirds all over the place this year. They always seem to perch in the Cypress tree and yesterday evening I spotted one with what appeared to be a spider or bug of some sort in it's bill. It flew to the Cypress tree, then to the roof, watching me intently. I went back inside and watched from the kitchen window and it flew down to a shrub. I checked this morning and indeed there is a nest low in the shrub ... I'm thinking there are babies to be fed!
My husband went for a bicycle ride yesterday evening and came home and told me about a large Osprey Nest in the neighborhood, built atop a low pole in the tennis court area of our subdivision. The courts and clubhouse look abandoned; it was obvious from appearance that they don't get much use so I'm assuming the Ospreys felt comfortable nesting there. There was one adult at the nest when we arrived and I snapped a (not so great) photo before it quickly took off. We only stayed about 5 minutes because the bird appeared to be making distress calls as it circled the area and I sure don't like disturbing nesting birds. As we were walking back down the path to the parking lot another adult came flying in with a piece of wood in its talons and I was able to get a photo of him/her. I never saw any young ones in the nest (they could have been hunkered down in the nest bowl as birds do when the adults sense a threat. The adult birds usually begin to build up the sides of the nest as their babies grow so that they don't fall out before fledging so I'm assuming there was at least one juvenile in the nest. I cropped the last photo for a close view of the Osprey carrying the piece of wood:
~ I'm an old gal who still loves playing in the dirt!
~ Playing in the dirt is my therapy ... and I'm in therapy a lot!
