Observations of a casual birdwatcher

I have turned all of our trees into orange trees for the benefit of the Baltimore orioles, beautiful and the exact color of the oranges they eat, with the sharp contrast of glossy black back, wings and head. Acrobatic, they don't mind perching practically on their heads so long as it gets them in position to nosh on orange slices.

By accident my orange sections attracted a red bellied woodpecker who arrives with several dry little coughs, and whose kookaburra-like sound I didn’t know until I saw him produce it just before he flew off. He doesn't know he's eating oranges from Hannaford supermarket; according to my Audubon book, he thinks he's eating wild fruits.

I hope he doesn't have a taste for plums, pears, and cherries, now that I've habituated him to finding food in those trees.

The hummingbirds delight me, tiny territorial warriors that they are. During any watching session there is always one who takes control of a feeder, flying off a short distance to lurk in the birch tree and swooping in to chase away any others who chance by. (Read others' interpretations of "Warrior" at Inspire Me Thursday.)

Often a male will perch on the shepherd’s crook that holds a feeder, skyward-angled head abruptly turning right and left on the watch for competitors, a miniscule FDR with cigarette holder.

The swallows have returned to their sturdy, but to my eye, inartistic nest in the woodshed. Last night the pair entertained me for an hour with their balletic moves. I went indoors for a few minutes. When I returned MiMau sprawled triumphantly next to something that looked horrifyingly similar to a felled swallow, with one bird menacing her by deeply plunging dives. I wanted to go see, but didn’t want to know.

I sat and looked for ten minutes from my chair forty feet from the scene, and finally had to go find out if there had been a killing. It was not a dead swallow, but a piece of bark. Jubilation.

Not so jubilant a story…

When I originally opened the bluebird box I thought it was already abandoned, and started to pull out the nesting material before I saw the eggs. After reading about Northview Diary’s baby robin, my envy inspired me to recheck the bluebird box, hoping to find that the four blue eggs would have become four tiny widely-gaping mouths.

The nest remains and there is evidence that efforts were made to reinforce it against predation: the front part has been built up into a sort of wall.

Two eggs remain.

But I believe it has been abandoned because of my intrusion. I feel terrible about that, and won’t be nosing around in future bluebird nesting sites.