Bird Brain

I still have birds on the brain...  I haven't been able to get great pictures of all the great birds we have in the yard.  But I did get this picture last week of the swallows right before they left the nest.

They are darn cute, but they make the biggest mess.  The day after I took this picture, they all flew out of the nest and followed their parents around the yard.  That was about a week ago, and I still think they are hanging around the yard, but they don't really use the nest. 

But in this last week, I have also seen some Scissortail Flycatchers.  If they really do eat insects, they are more than welcome in my yard. 

I see them frequently, and wonder if maybe they have a nest in one of the Hawthorne trees in the front yard...

But, by far, the most exciting bird I have seen --

THE HUMMINGBIRD!  I was so thrilled to see one on the back porch!  It was fluttering around all the purple petunias, and I probably watched it for 15 minutes or so.  Of course, my hummingbird feeders are empty, and it is a two person job to refill them....  Who would have guessed?  The hottest day of the year, and I see a hummingbird on my back porch.

Some things I will see...

There is so much to see in Maui!  We are going to give it the college try, but no doubt we will fall short in some area.  But right there at the place we will stay for the week, there is one of these.....

It is brand new and very nice...  other than the fact that I wake up at 3:30 or 4:00 am for the first few days, I would say that this is out of the question.  But when you wake up, you wake up -- and they have this cool new weight room.  It is slightly inviting.  Even to a nube like me.

Frankly, I would rather sit on my hind quarters and look at the lovely view.  I can easily sit there and just watch people and listen to the waves, ALL DAY.

And after a full day that started at 3:30 or 4:00 am, I am doing good if I can make it to see this...

But, oh, it is SO worth it.

No promises....

Okay, I know you think you are tired of hearing about these baby birds in the nests in my backyard, but I just HAVE to show you a picture of how they look today.  They have doubled or tripled in size, and the mom stays on the nest almost all the time.  If I go out there to try and get a glimpse, she might fly off of it and try to distract me with one of her injury acts.  But it's a little like she knows me now, and she knows I am not going to hurt her little ones. 

And as usual, every time the camera snapped, these poor little things thought they were fixing to get lucky in a "Mama's here to feed me," kind of way.  I didn't bother them very long.  I had other business to take care of in the yard.  There were plants, flowers and trees to be watered and cared for.

Like this lovely pot on my back porch....   if you are one of my sons, you know where this came from, and I am enjoying it every day this summer!  Muah!

But on the way back to the house, we found this little critter wandering around in the grass.  Of course, someone picked him up and chased me around the yard trying to make me hold him.  "Horned toads are just the coolest things ever!" I think were his exact words.  Well, that they may be, but I have no need to carry one around.  Don't need to touch one.  Nothing.  Over and out.

A Few Trees... Or A Forest?

Where we live..... let's just say, there are not an abundance of trees.  Anywhere.  I mean that in our area of the world, there are not a lot of trees, and I mean that in our neighborhood, there are not a lot of trees.  In fact, you could almost say that nearly all of the trees in our town were planted, or there are a few that might have blown in and grown after the Dust Bowl.

So we are doing our part, I mean, Mike is doing our part, to get some more trees established around our neighborhood.  He started with about 35 trees and quite a few shrubs in our yard after we moved in a few years ago.  Since then, he has teamed up with my mom, who saves trees -literally- and has planted about 17 more down in this draw and in the far reaches of our yard.  Mom finds trees that blow into her yard or flower bed, digs them up, starts them in a pot, and babies them until they grow too big for the pot or she finds someone to give them a new home.

So we, I mean, Mike has stepped up, and I mean it was a job.  I just hope to goodness we can keep these things alive because he even purchased a couple.  He always teases that he has to buy big ones because he wants to see them grow as much as possible, he doesn't know how long he will be around.  It's funny, because they are good-sized trees, but you can hardly tell it from these pictures.

But someday, I want you to come back -- okay, I will keep the pics and repost them -- and see how much shade we are enjoying out in this neighborhood with all the blue sky.

And no matter how many trees we plant, and no matter how big they grow, we will never get tired of looking at these beautiful sunsets.........

Mid-Summer Goings On

I could hardly leave you with the pics of the baby birds in the first nest without showing you the eggs that were about to hatch in the second nest.  It is up high enough that it is hard for me to get pictures without dragging a metal ladder out there.  Again, I can hardly believe that birds would put a nest in a tree with as little protection as this one provides...  But another mother Kingbird laid four sweet little eggs in this average-looking tiny nest.  She flew up above my head, squawking and trying to distract me.  She landed on the ground about 20 feet away, flipping and flopping, acting injured -- it was surprising the extent to which she tried to get me away from that nest area.

We caught these as they were hatching!  I didn't want to jinx anything, so I just snapped a few pics and left.  It was quite a sight.  Poor little things looked so pitiful, it is surprising they can survive at all.  It looked like a pretty big ordeal to get out of that egg and into this world.  Probably no different than every day of their lives after that...  just gotta keep fighting and moving forward!

Today was over 100 degrees, so I didn't even go out there.  If the mother was on the nest, I didn't want her to move her body and the shade that it was providing for all those little ones. 

Ornithology 101

About a week ago, Mike found two bird nests in the two smallest trees in our yard...  I mentioned this before.  I even showed you a picture of one of the nests with four little spotted eggs in it.  Well, a lot has been learned to me about birds since then, and I feel I must share.  *me being silly*

Here is the giant tree that the mother kingbird (found out it wasn't a meadowlark) thought would make a good home for her four little babies.  It is 3.5 feet tall at the most.

And here are the beautiful little eggs laying in the nest....  I didn't touch or breathe, or anything on them.  This was yesterday.  The nest is so tightly placed in between the branches, I just couldn't get my camera in any closer without risking moving something.  My camera was acting up, and it kept trying to focus on the branches or the other parts of the nest.  I have been taking pictures of the birds in my backyard everyday for about 10 days now.  I bet I have 1200 pictures of birds, feeding, flying, sitting, -- and about 95% of them are blurry.  You may not know this, but birds move fast.  Really fast.  They move lots faster than I am a decent photographer....

Then today, I got this picture of the mother sitting on the nest.  Can you see her in there?  She absolutely fills it.  Covers the whole thing up.  Wanna guess why?

 

One day later.  All those eggs have hatched, well, we think they are all hatched.  This was as close as I could get, and I was afraid it was too close.  Everytime they heard the camera go off, they opened their tiny mouths like they thought they were going to be fed.  I felt like some kind of fake mother bird.  :(

I want them to grow up and fly out of that nest so they can eat insects all over my yard!

Bird Facts

This is a bird nest that Mike actually found in the smallest tree in our backyard.  No kidding.  Of all the trees, and we don't have many that are sizable, they chose this tree that is like three and a half feet tall, and built a nest in it.  And there we found these precious little eggs.  Today I saw the mother sitting on the nest when I walked up, and of course, I spooked her, so she left, but at least I could see her, and what she looked like.  I think it was a meadowlark, or something of that type. 

Now, this nest (different one) of baby birds I have been watching for a little over a week.  There are five swallows in this muddy nest, and yes, they make a big mess right below it.   There are two "parent birds" - if we are being politically correct, I technically do not know their gender - that come in and constantly feed them all day long.  Since they have poked their little heads over the top edge of the nest, it has only been a few days, and today, they started flying out of it. 

But look at how big they are in the nest!  There is barely room for all of them in it!  So the 'parent birds' would squawk -- which we couldn't tell if was an invitation to get on out of there and try to fly, or stay the heck in there where it is safe...  we have really gotten a big kick out of watching them because they are right by a window in our kitchen.  At one point or another today, we saw every single one of them leave the nest, and I am pretty sure, they all made it safely back in.  Whew! 

Another big day in Lily's World.

How lucky am I?

I cannot help but think about my freedoms this weekend.  No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to fully comprehend the benefits of the freedoms I enjoy.  I am so lucky.

I am not going to be a member of the military and serve my country on the other side of the world, so I won't see what those people have done for me.  I wasn't born in a third world country with the odds stacked against me, so I can't imagine what it would be like to sleep on the ground every night, or obligated to carry a heavy basket of something or other on my head.  I just haven't had to pay the ultimate price, personally.  My uncle gave his life in service.  Mike's uncle did the same.

So because I am free, I can see the world.  I can go anywhere in my little town that I want, whenever I want to go.  As a matter of fact, I can go anywhere in the world!  And while I am able to go wherever I want to go, I am able to see loads of things.  And what I see, might be different than what you would see.  Even though we are looking at the exact same thing....

I am okay with you seeing something different than what I see.  Totally fine with it.  I think it is what makes the world go round.  It is a really big world.  There's enough room for all of us. 

Be a citizen of the world.   

The big birds have no idea.....

The birds that made this nest know nothing about the World Cup.  They have no idea that the USA is out.  They have no idea that they are center stage because of .... soccer.

I don't know if you can tell or not... but there are four little baby bird heads poking up out of this nest.  It is on my back porch, and yes, they are making a big mess, but what do you do?  The mom and dad come along ever so often and feed them, and these little fellas act like they are starving to death!  After all, it is around 95 degrees out there, and I'll bet they would like nothing more than a big long gulp of water. 

For a while now, I have been watching the parentals coming and going from this nest, making the preparations needed for the arrival of these itty bitty ones.  The nest is way up high, probably about 12 feet off the ground.  So until a couple of days ago, I didn't know that the eggs had actually hatched, and the babies were fighting for survival.  It has been a fast incubation, if you ask me.

It got me to thinking about my own nest.  Seems like not so long ago, we had a baby or two of our own.  They squawked.  We fed them.  They started to show signs of growth and maturity, and we gave them space to grow even more.  We let them take little trips out of the nest, and they learned confidence, and always came back.  But we are approaching big steps out of the nest.  They are probably ready.  But, am I?  What's next?  Will they come back?  Ever?  The big birds have no idea what is going to happen to their little nest and its occupants.  But I do.  And it's good.  Life is good.