Big day yesterday. Worked in the yard all day putting wood chips down in the garden. It looks much better now, the lighter chips make the green stand out more. Not much is blooming right now, the tulips are done, but they were pretty spectacular. Some are pastel pink and yellow and there’s another bed of bright red and yellow. They probably would have lasted longer but they took a beating in the storms this week.
The big news is on the birding front. We had an indigo bunting at our feeder! It was there all day, I hope that means it’s nesting near by. I’m wondering if they are making some kind of comeback. I used to see them pretty frequently up in Moorhead where I grew up, but until last summer I’d only had a couple of sightings over the last forty some years. Last summer I saw all kinds of them up on the Crow Wing River on a fishing trip and now I have one at my feeder. They are so beautiful.
The week before last I also saw a goshawk in the back yard. He was swooping through the trees and perching on our fence, looking for the unsuspecting chipmunk or sparrow. At first I thought it was a coopers; they have the same basic shape and wing configuration, and I see them pretty often back there. But this one didn’t have any stiping on it’s breast, just a pale grey, lightly mottled. I thought that goshawks were much larger though. After checking the books, I found that males are much smaller than females and that they were about the size of a black crowned night heron. It couldn’t have been anything else. So two new entries into my long list of birds seen from my backyard.
I had a deer cross my path this morning as I walked the dog just about sunrise. That might not be so amazing in some ways, I do call the back “the woods,” except its a suburban superblock with four schools and thousands of houses and I have no real idea of how it might have gotten there.
not completely good, but kinda good….
we’ve got a little hawk that hangs around my house and eats mice…
i have named him steve…
Ooooh, yay for adding two more birds to the list! That reminds me, I’ve gotta put seed out.
I sometimes chop up and throw out old apples (not spoiled ones, just ones that I don’t want to eat) and the Northern Mockingbirds love them. They’ll stop and pick at them, it’s so cool to watch!