Residents And Visitors

Spring is the busiest time in our own garden aviary.  We have both resident aerialists that stay with us year round and the ones that travel back and forth from North to South America annually.  Every spring we roll out the red carpet for them, helping them stay strong and nurturing a new generation.  By the end of spring some of them already have a new extended family and are ready to start a second brood.  Most of them are camera shy but some of them have become used to seeing me in the garden all the time…just another big funny looking deer to them.

This Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) couple had three chicks.  Yes, I checked.  I patrol the bird houses in the garden to make sure that the House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) haven’t taken them over and to insure the Cowbirds haven’t laid their eggs in one of the nests.  This pair ended up with one surviving chick.  I witnessed one chick becoming a Bluejay (Cyanocitta cristata) lunch.  I have no idea what happened to the other chick so I’m hoping it survived.  They just had another brood, four newly hatched chicks, hopefully more than one will survive.

The Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) is one of the smartest and friendliest birds in our garden.  They come back every spring and stay until late fall.  We put oranges out as soon as we see the first one show up. They help keep the Japanese beetles under control.  Their first brood, two chicks, have grown up and as far as I know one pair has started a nest in the front Forsythia bush.

All the books I have read indicated that Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) produce one brood a year in the Northern US but this pair by the vegetable garden are having a second one.  Maybe because their first brood, three chicks in all, and their nest was destroyed by our neighbor’s cat.  They didn’t give up and rebuilt the nest in the same box.  We put a squirrel guard flange under the nest box this time to prevent the cat from getting to the nest.  I haven’t peeked to see how many eggs they have.  The good news is the Tree Swallow family that nested in the front yard produced five chicks and they have all fledged.

When we see the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) in the neighborhood that means spring is coming.  A couple of pairs have nested in our garden each year.  They help a lot by picking grubs off the lawn and gardens.  Their first brood have all grown up now and they’ve already started a second one.

This House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) was building a nest she ended up nesting in.  They have a habit of building a few dummy houses before they actually pick one.  Five chicks from this nest had flown off.  Two more pairs are singing and building nest in the garden now.

I don’t know where the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) nest but they are repeat annual visitors and we seem to have more of them every year.  It’s fun to watch them doing their courting ritual; flying back and forth sideways like a pendulum- and when they take their dinner at dusk.  Delicate and beautiful little birds that they are.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (Pheucticus ludovicianus) also stopped by to refuel this spring as usual before flying further north.  They have a very distinctive and lovely song.  I wish they would nest with us instead of just commuting through.

Yes, woodpeckers eats oranges along with a variety of things.  They even eat small lizards upon occasion, though there are no lizards here.  We were surprised to see one eating oranges we had put out a few years ago.  The oranges were intended for the Baltimore Orioles and Gray Catbird but the orioles have never come down for it.  We thought that only one particular Red-bellied was eating them, but more than one stops in regularly when they have active nests in the area.

They would eat for a while and at the end they would gather pulp, keep it between their beaks, and fly off, we presume for nesting youngsters.

There are some more avians around the garden this spring.  The common ones like American Goldfinch, House Finch, American Tree Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Blue Jay, Red-winged Blackbird, Downey Woodpecker, Chickadee, Titmouse, Northern Cardinal….and with them around we don’t need pesticide.  The down side is we see less butterflies due to caterpillars being invited to lunch, so to speak, but our garden is never without someone serenading somewhere in the premises.