Friday, July 20, 2007

Mystery solved

I went on the bird forum and posted a link to the pictures of the mystery bird on the previous post. Someone posted that the bird is an immature brown headed cow bird with the chestnut sided warbler as its foster mother.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Encountering Birds, one a mystery.


I didn't have to go very far to see birds this weekend. When I got home at about noon on Sunday, two birds were flying around in our garage. We usually keep the garage doors shut to try to keep out the rodents (fat chance!) But they were open and in flew the birds. But they wouldn't fly out.

Our theory is that their eyes had adjusted to the dimmer light inside, so that the open garage door presented a blinding light to them. These birds were in there several hours, flying around, pooping everywhere. They flew out only after the sky became cloudy and the natural light dimmer.

We could tell that the small one was a Chestnut Sided warbler, but the other one is a mystery, even after comparing the photos to the bird book. Our best guess is that it is an immature Rose Breasted Grosbeak. It acted immature in that it would open its mouth and "peep" whenever the smaller bird landed next to it.

We also have a robins nest in a small oak tree near the garage. If the adult robins knew we were nearby, they wouldn't fly to the nest, but rather, they would sit on the peak of the garage, making an occasional chirp, probably telling me to hurry up and leave. They took turns feeding the young, which I could barely see through the leaves. I snapped this picture after Momma Robin had just taken her turn at feeding the young. That is one tired bird!