It was a pretty slow week for back yard bird sightings.
Again, there were a few out of back yard sighting, but I’m not adding those to my list. I did see the hawk near Exit 13 again. I think it’s a red tailed hawk, but this time he was in flight, going along the edge of the 103 near Hebb’s Lake with a crow in hot pursuit.
For other birds, crows must be either great to have around or the biggest pain in the butt in existence. They love to chase predators. I’m not sure why, but hawks, eagles, owls, anything like that, crows seem to love to chase. I have witnessed some pretty impressive aerial displays by crows as they dive at other birds that, by rights, should probably be eating them. For some reason, they don’t. Maybe the crows are too fast. Or they’re just too loud and annoying to hang around. I have no idea. But the seem to take great delight in chasing birds that should be equipped to do them harm.
And then there were a couple of male mallards waiting to cross the highway one evening. I’m not sure what that’s all about. You wouldn’t think two males would be hanging out together at this time of year. And it’s not like flying across the highway would not be the quicker, safer option. But these two were just standing there and seemed to be waiting for the traffic to pass so they could check out the ditch on the other side.
But I did find one more bird to add to my back yard list this week. A couple dark eyed juncos came through with a few chickadees. They do seem to hang out together fairly often. Then again, I have heard people say that there are a few small birds that like to hang out around chickadees because they tend to rather loudly announce when they find food. And chickadees are not overly quiet. (Although all that talk about cheeseburgers tends to make me hungry.)
So the list now stands at twelve:
crows
starlings
black capped chickadees
white breasted nuthatch
sparrows
blue jay
cardinals
robins
mourning dove
gold finch
cedar waxwings
dark eyed junco
