re: The Birds

We too are seeing all of our normal residents back, we Winter over a lot of wrens, and finches, but we now have back all of the showy ones. We keep our Downy and Redbellied woodpeckers all year, but our occasional Pileated Woody has made some appearances lately. A lot of Cardinals, Doves, and Robins stay around most of the year. For about 2 weeks we were getting hit with a pair of Mallards, sometimes with heavy rains they think our drainage ditch out back is a creek, and we have to chase them off from trying to nest there, but this is the first they are actually at the feeders, or at least on the ground under them, eating scatter that gets knocked out of them. Of course our resident Coopers Hawk, keeps a close eye on the action. I think it feeds primarily off of the many birds we attract. We have a lot of Redtails, and some Kestrels too, but they like the mouse action. A friend a few miles away has 2 Bald Eagles that poach off their feeders though. I figure easy pickings, they don't need to look, just fly by, and pick which one do I want now. Not far away we have a site with several nesting pairs of Baldies, the locals keep the position hush hush to keep the lookie loos away.

This is the nest with a cam, they have 2 little ones this year, growing like wild.

We also have a Rookery close by where about 80 Great Blue Herons roost, and nest, it can get pretty wild around dark there. They won't put in a cam, again to keep the idgits who think they have some right to stomp all over private property to go look. I personally like the No Trespassing, survivors will be prosecuted signs. :-)