The grackles are courting

 

©voyager, all rights reserved

She lands first. Then he, about a foot away.

He looks at her sideways and puffs himself up. She looks at him sideways and hops away.

He hops to her again and raises his beak to the sky while glancing at her sideways. She raises her beak too and also glances at him sideways.

They repeat the throat display with lots of sideways glances. Once. Twice. Then she hops away again.

He hop follows her and puffs himself up again. One more throat display and then suddenly they fly away, she first and he hot on her tail.

Enter the next pair (or the same pair…it’s hard to tell) and repeat.

This has been going on all day and I can hardly tear myself away from the window. My back fence is definitely a hot pick-up place for grackles this year. I can hardly wait to see all the babies. (photos taken by spy cam through the bedroom window)

Feathering Nests

The blue tits seem not to mind that I fell the cherry tree and hung the nesting box on the plum. I see them daily there and they sing in the tree, so I think they are nesting there even though I have not seen them entering the box. What was my surprise then when I looked at this picture and I saw one blue tit and one field sparrow with a bunch of feathers in his beak. A few moments later I heard some squabbling and the fluff floated down from the tree. Maybe the sparrow was stealing bedding from the tits?  These tiny birds are pretty mean to each other so that would not be surprising.

Birds on a tree

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

And a first daisies came out.

Daisy

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Von Wright’s Scandinavian Birds.

All of the stunning paintings in Svenska Fåglar (Swedish Birds) by the von Wright brothers (1929 folio version) are in the public domain, and free to download and use in any way you wish. This is exquisite artwork, so even if you don’t want to use it, have a wander anyway, your day will be better for it. Also in the public domain are Birds of Australia, Ornithological volume by John Gould (1804-1881), illustrated by Elizabeth Gould (1804–1841), which introduced more than 300 new birds to the world.

Crow with Fish.

From Ice Swimmer: This crow was sitting in spruce tree in an island, eating a small fish (probably a perch, caught by somebody fishing on the sea ice). The crow is there in the first picture, but the branches obscure it. The bird was worried that I might take its seafood meal and flew to another tree (a deciduous one). Click for full size!

[Read more…]

Stealing Fire.

Black kites (Milvus migrans) circle near a roadway during a fire on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. Credit: Dick Eussen.


Black kites (Milvus migrans) circle near a roadway during a fire on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. Credit: Dick Eussen.

Grassland fires that are deadly and devastating events for many kinds of wildlife are a boon to certain types of birds known as fire foragers. These opportunists prey on animals fleeing from a blaze, or scavenge the remains of creatures that succumbed to the flames and the smoke. But in Australia, some fire-foraging birds are also fire starters.

Three species of raptors are widely known not only for lurking on the fringes of fires but also for snatching up smoldering grasses or branches and using them to kindle fresh flames, to smoke out mammal and insect prey.

How amazing is that?! You can read and see more at Live Science.

Crows on the Railing.

From Ice Swimmer: These crows were relatively unconcerned of being photographed. The place is the bridge to the island Seurasaari, home to an open-air museum in which there are traditional wooden buildings transplanted from all over Finland, which would have been demolished otherwise. Click for full size!

© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.