Enjoying Our Winter Birds

Our tiny bird, with their black hood, white throat and grey body is called a Chickadee, and their call is just like that chick-a-dee-dee-dee. They are getting more and more trusting of me that I can move in closer. I've also set the picture 'beep' to off as that seems to scare them.

Last Wednesday I captured this one during a fluffy snow storm. I have a suet ball hanging and then the blown glass holder than mom gave me as an Xmas present.

They come in one by one, take a mouth full and then fly off to the surrounding trees.

Here you can see 3 chickadees sitting on the clothes line waiting their turn. Yeah, sometimes we'll see one on each side of the suet ball, but that is rare.

This little one gets to feast all by himself.
I find it amazing that as soon as the sun starts to go down, they all disappear.

A red headed woodpecker showed up yesterday, but when I went to open the patio doors to snap a picture, it was gone into the bushes in a flash.

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Tap, Tap, Tap, Who's There?

Last week was one just of those weeks, where we felt like we were going in circles. Spring was really in the air, with temperatures way above our highs, in fact setting several days on record with temps of 14-16C.


Everything seems to come out ... Sitting in the living room I would hear every so often this tap, tap, tap. It would stop and then start up again. I had a feeling I knew what it was having experienced something the same last year. A bird had come down our chimney and was caught in the fire box! Not having yet cleaned the glass nor removed the ashes from our February fires I couldn't visually see in without opening the door. You could hear a bit of wing flutter as it would go back up on top of the fire box.


Last year we went through a production of trying to free the bird in the same situation. I contacted our chimney cleaning company for guidance, friends offered suggestions, all which lead to getting out our the sheets we use to cover our plants in the fall when frost is called for, stretching them over the entrance all in attempt to capture/wrap it up when it flies out. Didn't work, it ended up flying out the side, hitting the window then resting on the far kitchen cabinets. A broom was then used, which the bird got onto and I slowly directed towards our patio doors and hoping it would take flight out the door of our screened in deck area. That worked AOK.


So, let's forget all the props, just open the doors and wait ... didn't take long and out it flew,


hitting the windows a few times ... it rested on the window sill ...
then easily found its way to the patio door and flew out the porch door. There it rested, fluffed itself a few times, made some calling sounds and was gone.


I am still not sure what kind of bird it is. There is one called a Chimney Swift, commonly known for this spring behaviour as it looks for nesting areas, but it appears to be a much smaller bird with a smaller beak. This one from my books looks like a European Starling.


On the same theme of what spring brings out ... mornings are still cools so I was wearing a mock turkle neck, and hoodie sweat and a light jacket ... pretty much covered, no? I go into the "Canine Suite" to let our pregnant girls out and all of a sudden feel something touch, kinda 'pinch' the back of my neck/shoulders. I wack my upper back in reaction. Get the girls out and feel another 'pinch'! Ouch, this is more like a 'bite'. So I rip off all my layers and don't I find a hornet or wasp (I never know the difference) attached inside my top! These will guys come out, especially here in the country when the weather warms up, but are pretty 'groggy'. They usually don't 'attack' us. Guess I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, as this guy lost flying ability. He bit me at least 3 x & I developed large hard whelts that were itchy! TG no other reactions.

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Second Clutch - Mrs. Robin

Mrs. Robin was away at play! She's back and has laid 3 eggs. Her nest is in an OK location in the dog pen area, however I still need to get the Phoebe's nest down so she doesn't leave her 'surprises' behind again.

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Taking Flight - Eastern Pheobes

They are Eastern Phoebes!!
Thanks to a Shelamo shelties' 'mom', Judy emailed me answering my question on what kind of other 'mother' bird we had nesting in the rafters of our covered kennel area.

I've been watching them over the last week, seeing them get large enough where their heads have been peering over the top of the nest ... think they are getting cramped up there!

This morning I decided they were obviously big enough, and with holding the camera up high, on flash you could see them clearly in a picture.
2 pics later! and I had the 4 baby birds take flight (ya, I figured the camer flash might do it) .... 3 of them flew out over the dog pen towards the laneway, while one headed for the rafters. It ended up taking one more flight towards the last rafter and there it sat while I finished the morning kennel run, hosed down their poop droppings in the dog pen and tended to the front gardens.

5 hrs later, it's found its way to the open forests.
Yes, it's been neat to watch 2 different birds tend to their nests these last few weeks ... however I'm tired of cleaning up behind them too! This 'mother's' entrance always seem to start near the stairs/railing to the front door, and she'd always leave 'presents' there. Not nice!

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Robins Have Flown The Nest

Not much to see but an empty nest. Yep! was just out (3:30pm) to bring in the dogs for an early supper as I head out to teach dog class ... and ... they are ALL gone! The commotion I heard late this morn by the dogs must have been the robins as they were trying to take flight.

I wish them luck as they fly to their new lives.

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Almost Ready To Fly

The Robins I calculate at around 13 days of age and now have all the Robin colouring. They look awfully cramped ... am sure they must be almost ready to fly the nest. They are quiet, I never hear them when I'm out with the dogs, even when Mrs Robin is sitting on the dog fencing, squaking at me, usually with a meal in her mouth.

This is the other Mrs Bird Mom that has a smaller nest which is too high up for me to peek into, yet I'll be darned if can find what kind of bird she is in my Audubon Handbook. Anyone know ?? would love to find out.

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Agility @ our National Equestrian Park

These agility trials are held at our National Equestrian Park. The same place as many of you into horse jumping would have seen Big Ben of Perth, Ont (just minutes from us) compete. In his prime he won many awards here. I had the pleasure of seeing him several times here and also sponsored an award that Jill Henselwood won one yr.

Here is the fountain & pond that is viewed upon entering the main grassed ring areas.

This pic is taken from across the pond. Several families of Canada Geese were there, watching intently over their brood. I could count 13 babies in this family.

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Day 7 Robin Updates & New Mother Sparrow Seen

Sush! Everyone is sleeping! We'll say they are around 7 days old based on my 1st pics of them. All packed together, they are just one mass of babies starting to grow their feathers.

Above is a split picture of Mrs Robin and not far away Mrs Sprarrow (I think). Knew the nest was a rafter away but not that it was occupied! You can just see her beak poking out beside the wire. She's situated too high up for me to get pics of her babies.

Mrs Robin flew in and fed, then headed back out ... one birdie is saying 'More Pls!!!"

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Good Morning Mr. Blue Jay!

A Blue Jay from our deck

As we start our Blog, now the beginning of May/09 just off our deck is a Blue Jay making itself at home. Nice to see colour coming to life, even if it's mostly the dandilions popping up all over.

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Our old girl "Opal" lazing in the sun

Just outside, what we call our Canine Suite is our deck where our puppies play, our pregnant girls & our 'house mice' enjoy doing what they want. Here's our oldest girl, our foundation girl, our ROMC girl enjoying the May afternoon sunshine. Oh, what life is like as a dog!

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