Strange landings, part 2.....

Yesterday we had another interesting strange landing of a huge bird in an unexpected place. After our Canada Geese landing on our roof (not exactly a flat runway), Kim my wife discovered this Great Blue Heron way up in the dead part of a willow tree near our backyard. Considering the wingspan (6.6 Ft) of these birds, feet which are made to stand in or near water and not grab branches, and an overall awkward, wobbly landing, it is totally amazing this bird made it to where it was sitting. Unfortunately we never saw the landing or the take-off. What will we see next?

Proud Robin parents + sad ending

Our Crab Apple nest welcomed babies over the weekend, we believe it to be two or three tiny ones sticking their necks and beaks out for every movement over the nest. We're thrilled and as promised will keep Poke out of the backyard!

UPDATE on 6/18/11: We are sad to report that on 6/16
the Robin's nest was attacked by a Coopers Hawk. My wife saw the entire drama unfold and reported it immediately. The whole thing took but a second, and the brave parents went after the Hawk with a vengeance. For a while we were not sure to assess what exactly the Hawk had taken or caused, however it became soon clear that the nest had been abandoned, and no young were visible anymore. We suspect they were both grabbed. As unsettling as this may be, it does show nature at its rawest and most interesting; it remains a bird-eat-bird world out there. We feel in a way fortunate that we saw it unfold, and know what happened. We'll treasure these photos.

Looking for cat, getting Gray Catbird instead!

Looking for my cat today I heard a faint meow, and some rustling of leaves in and under the Juniper bushes along the driveway. Thinking for sure I had located the little rascal, I soon discovered it to be a Gray Catbird digging in and under some dead leaves, stuck in the juniper. I fetched my camera and got him just in time sticking his head up. I do hope they're nesting in the area, which would be a great experience for this birder!

Downy inspects garage doors!

We had quite a spectacle today when a young Downy decided to fly into the open garage, and simply couldn't find its way out. We have a rather high (12') sealing, and quite instinctively, the woodpecker found the highest point and wouldn't come down or out. Garage-door brackets seem an attractive alternative to trees, so see for yourself....

The adventure ended with the help of a borrowed net from our good Willowbrook Wildlife friends, which ultimately pursuaded young Woody that life outside the garage was much more pleasant than inside!

And all that in Chicago's 90+ Degr. F...... :-)

Cedar Waxwing love

We took a nice walk in our wonderful Willowbrook nature preserve this afternoon (high 80s) and took some nice shots of a courting couple of Cedar Waxwings. We have so many of them this year, and I think the "F" (fairly common) designation for late Spring by the DuPage Birding Club may have to be re-written as C(ommon) if not A(bundant). They just love the bare branches of dead trees, and the top of our our neighbor's dead Willow sometimes looks like a Christmas trees when flocks of Waxwings and Goldfinches congregate at the same time. This here was a cute scene when he offers a berry treat to his partner!

Bird (bath) safety

Not long ago we bought a terrific bird bath on Craigslist. It's barely used, beautifully purple glaze-over-terracotta, with the bowl locking onto the pedestal. Super safe and sturdy even if the occasional raccoon decides to jump on it. We did come to the conclusion however that the 5.5 - 6 inch depth of the bowl definitely was not as songbird-friendly as we had wanted, so we decided to build up a rock platform in the middle of the bowl which gives enough foothold and leaves a small enough moat for any bird to feel safe and comfortable. The purplish river rocks blend in nicely with the bath, and give the whole thing a more organic look.                              

It's certainly no "rock"-et science

The only problem thus far is the fact that the rocks heat up the bath water pretty quickly, with the good consequence that we're refreshing the water quite often, thus keeping bath and birds clean and fresh all the time. 

but we felt it would be an interesting tip!

Can't wait to see it being used as intended!

Expecting new life here and there...



The "new" bench was a trash find, it's perfect!

Other than the yard reaching its full Spring beauty, with new green and growth preparing no-doubt for another onslaught of a Chicago summer, birding has been relatively slow in general.

Our migrators have moved on, and we're pleased to see we have a number of nest-building Robins around the house and yard. Here is one of the parents giving us a great "Wisconsin Dells" exhibit in the bird bath...

My faithful garden companion!

  We'll soon be reporting on family life in the Crab Apple nest, and will surely be extra vigilant for the safety of our baby Robins due to this new little creature in our life....His name is Poky and came as a teacup sized rescue, after that you're lost.....
He seems to be more interested in naps than birds anyhow, which makes our birding life extremely pleasant!

Splish splash..........

The new nest boxes have thus far been ignored, and we keep hoping we may get some other family life in those as well. Most exciting visitors lately were our first (female) Ruby-throated Hummer and (male) Baltimore Oriole, and we decided to add an Oriole nectar feeder to the "regular" Hummingbird feeder in our back yard. Supposedly the Oriole feeder will attract Hummers as well, plus Wrens, Catbirds, Flickers and Woodpeckers, we'll see......          This being an excellent Oriole year here in Northern Illinois, I sure hope for success with this feeder (Orange 12 Oz./4 port Oriole-Fest by Birds Choice)