Hummer!

I FINALLY saw my first hummer of the year at our feeder. Roy had been seeing a female all week while I was at work, but by the time I would arrive home, she'd be gone for the day. This morning, I was woken up from a dream by hearing, "Hey Bek!" At first I thought it was in my dream, but then I questioned it as it pulled me out of my restful sleep. I looked around and didn't see Roy, so I thought that maybe it was my dream! However, a few seconds later I saw him standing in the doorway. "The hummingbird is out there!" he beckoned. Of course by the time I got out to the living room (I don't move quickly in the mornings!), she was gone. I sat and stared. And stared and sat. And I sat some more. Finally I decided I'd better go take a shower, but I knew as soon as I left, she would come back! As I began to state my predicament out loud, she flew back to the feeder and fed for about half a minute. She was not willing to settle on the perch but instead chose to eat while fluttering about, wings flapping furiously. I didn't get to take any pictures because her time here only lasted for seconds and I wasn't willing to risk scaring her off by any sudden movement.

But the joy was the same. It made me not want to leave my balcony and my feeders even more, but I'm so excited about our new apartment. Hopefully I will still get to see birds around... even if they aren't at my window every day.

Red and Wilma... and Pebbles?

The first bird to show up on our patio two years ago was a house finch. Since then, a few house finches have made our tree their home and our bird feeder their kitchen. Because of the red color of the male, we named him Red. I would occasionally refer to the female as Wilma, attempting a punny reference to the Flintstones.

A few days ago, I was home during the day and heard excessive cheeping at the feeder. I could tell it was a finch, but it sounded odd. I peeked between the blinds to find three finches munching on lunch... Red, Wilma, and a fuzzy-headed addition. I think Pebbles is an appropriate name.

Here she is eating at the feeder next to Wilma. Although she's eating some on her own, she's still being fed some by her parents, too, as the next picture shows.

Greenville, TX - June 4

Roy and I went to Greenville, TX for our anniversary weekend. Although the weather was stinkin' hot (as Roy would put it!), that didn't keep us from birding. We just did it from the comfort of our air-conditioned car! We drove out to a prairie we had read of online, but that was kind of a bust. So we kept driving, especially looking on the wires where the birds like to perch.

We saw several barn swallows. Nothing too exciting as we see them all the time in Dallas, but they are still fun to watch. This one made me think of myself as I'm always stretching out my neck!


We saw a TON of dickcissels... and this was a new bird for us! Although we'd heard of them and seen their pictures in our birding books, we'd never seen them in real life! Apparently they migrate in large numbers. We sure saw a bunch of them!



One of our favorites is the scissor-tailed flycatchers. We love watching them fly, tail split open.


As we were driving slowly down the gravel road, I spotted a bird flying alongside of the car, just in front of us. It landed in a bush on the side of the road. Roy and I were shocked when we saw it was a painted bunting! Now you have to understand, we planned our first anniversary trip based on a place that has a high population of painted buntings because we wanted to see these beautiful birds. We did see them last year at bird blinds, but we had never seen one out in the "wild." Those bird blinds don't really count as "in the wild"... food, water, etc. set up just for the birds. So we were pretty stoked!

This little guy just sat there, letting his feathery hair blow in the breeze.

Greenville, TX

ANNIVERSARY BIRDING - COMING SOON!