We have enjoyed watching our new neighbors, a pair of Eastern Phoebes who took up residence under our deck. Previous posts about the nest location, tail wags, and 3 eggs are here and here.
We are happy to say the eggs have hatched. Mom and Dad are busy gathering insects to feed the babies. They fly to a perch not far above ground. There they scan the grass and bushes nearby for movement of insects. They must have excellent vision.
Upon spotting something, they quickly fly to it, grab it with their beak, and fly back to the perch. After a few quick tail wags, they thrash the insect left and right on the perch a few times and fly to the nest to put it into a wide mouth.
Update: Under the blue divider is the original post about our new Phoebe neighbors. They built a nest under our deck as pictured at the end of the original post. I noticed one of the birds sitting on the nest a few days ago and wondered if there was a way to see the eggs. Seen from above on the deck, the nest is under the X. I quietly bent down and was able to barely see through the 1/4″ crack to the nest.
I placed my phone over the crack and turned on the camera. The lens is tiny and was able to peer through to the nest. What a pleasant surprise.
Original: We enjoy the usual avian visitors to the woods behind our house. There are cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, flickers, etc. who are year-round residents. Others are passing through during migration in fall and spring. This year, we have the nest of an Eastern PhoebeSayornis phoebe under our deck for the first time. We hope it proves to be a good location for them so we can monitor the progress of their young.
See the thread or cobweb across the side of the head.
We enjoy the usual avian visitors to the woods behind our house. There are cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, flickers, etc. who are year-round residents. Others are passing through during migration in fall and spring. This year, we have the nest of an Eastern PhoebeSayornis phoebe under our deck for the first time. We hope it proves to be a good location for them so we can monitor the progress of their young.
See the thread or cobweb across the side of the head.
Frequent visits lately of Ruby Throated Hummingbirds and Black Capped Chickadees to the backyard feeders. My records show the last hummingbird sighting is in the final week of September for my eastern Iowa location. Chicadees stay all year long.
The video has been slowed to 70% for the hummingbird and 50% for the chickadee in order to view them more easily. Enjoy.
The first tiny House Wrens returned last week. Their singing will seem non-stop for the next six months. For their small size, they make a lot of cheerful sound. This one occupies the house attached to our back deck. I wrote about his attempts to fill it with twigs in this recent post.
The Spring 2012 issue of BirdScope from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology had an article about the song of the House Wren. The author claimed males can sing 600 times an hour. I confirmed that claim using my own backyard observations. During lunch on the deck, I counted songs for several timed intervals and got basically the same result. That is 6,000 calls in a 10 hour day, 180,000 in a month of 30 days, or 1,080,000 calls in 6 months. I don’t know how they do it. Such a little bird and so much sound. Wrens are one of the most vocal guests in our backyard, along with the Gray Catbird.
It was a cold and brutal winter in northeast Iowa near Decorah where the Bald Eagle live-streaming nestcam is located. (Wait for the 30 s ad to go away.) The IA winter was the coldest in 35 yrs. Three eggs were laid in February. Hatching started in late March. There was concern whether the cold damaged one or more of the eggs. The third eaglet emerged the morning of April 7. Below is one of the three eaglets up close. Cute, isn’t it? Volunteers are on hand to manually operate the nestcam if something interesting happens.
A volunteer called dragonlainey has a YouTube channel with several good videos of eagle activity. Here is one of the latest. It shows feeding, arrival of fresh fish, and one of the eaglets in a stupor from a full gullet. The parents have raised several broods over the recent years. They are doing a good job again with these three.
Our grand-daughter stayed over night. She is nine. In the evening we watched the PBS show Nature called Earthflight Episode 4. It had a lot of footage about vultures and condors in South America. We decided to go see our local Turkey Vultures at their roost the next morning. They sit on the large rocks on the dam of our local reservoir. Just after sunrise, we got in the car and drove the few miles to see if they were stirring with the morning sun. Our timing was good. There were dozens waiting patiently on the rocks for the warm sun and thermals.
We moved the car a little farther up the road to get a different perspective on the flock. They didn’t seem to mind us being there.
When we reached the spot where the bicycles were in the image above, I got out to try for some video. They were getting more restless and trying their wings. A gentle breeze came up the slope of the dam. They launched themselves into it and soared easily.
We saw many other Turkey Vultures on the other side of the dam, on the sand beach, and along a gravel roadway.
We turned around and headed away from the dam. Around the bend of the road were these deer. We had seen three earlier different from these. They seem a little slim and small this year. Maybe it is because of the two consecutive summers of heat and drought.
On our way back toward home, we stopped to hike along a short section of a favorite trail. It is maintained by the park district and passes through the wooded ravine between two housing developments. There are some huge old oak trees, the kind you see in some story books.
It was a pleasant walk with some good up and down parts. We saw another deer and these bright orange fungi. They were too far down in the ravine to get a better look.
Milkweeds caught the eye of grand-daughter. They are so interesting to play with. The white blood is fascinating to a nine-year-old.
We went home and made some homemade pancakes and fried up bacon. She ate well. We played with the dulcimer, watched a twelve-year-old yodel on YouTube, and worked on a quilt top for her baby brother. It started to rain mid-day. We drove her the one hour home and stayed for a while before coming home ourselves. It was still raining. But there was a bright patch of sky low in the west. Could it be blue sky?
Soon after we got home and settled, I looked out the window. It was just a few minutes before sunset. The sun had come out in that bright patch of sky. I hurried to the east window. There was a glorious full rainbow as big as we had ever seen. We stood in wonder of it. What a nice ending to the day.
We are trying out a new type of feeder for the little finches. It’s a woven nylon mesh that hold Niger thistle seed. I hung this up close to the window on the second floor so the deer and raccoons wouldn’t get at it. And, it puts them up close for good views.
The main visitors are goldfinches and pine siskins. We are looking forward to the spring when the goldfinches have ripened into their bright yellow plummage.
We also noticed this odd hanging object a few days ago. It is about the size of a softball. Any ideas what it might be?
We have enjoyed watching our new neighbors, a pair of Eastern Phoebes who took up residence under our deck. Previous posts about the nest location, tail wags, and 3 eggs are here and here.
Our View From Iowa 