I know the orioles around my place are not color blind, but they apparently are prejudice of color as they will take the white strings and rarely take any of the red strings for nest building. Even the blue jay came and took the white strings. It is funny to watch them often grab more than one string before flying off to their nesting site as seen in the video I took a few years ago.
Taking Strings
The returning birds seem to get the most attention right now, but some of the year-round birds add some color too as the cardinal stands out against the green grass as well as a backdrop of white snow in the winter. Their red adds to the rainbow of colors at the feeders and add their songs to the spring chorus.
Cardinal on Green Grass
My bird feeder had some new color today although most of the birds weren’t sharing so it was a revolving scene of color. The oriole was displaying its orange color as it rested on top of the feeder as the red cardinal was trying to land, but soon was replaced by the goldfinch and the black, red and white of the grosbeak. But a flash of blue caught my eye as an Indigo Bunting flew up from the ground to the feeder. With a cheerful song, it is sometimes called the blue canary.
Indigo Bunting
More signs of spring arrived the last two days as more birds returned like the wrens, swallows, orioles, grosbeaks and the little hummingbirds. Rose-breasted grosbeak males actually sit on the eggs for a few hours during the day but the female does most of the egg incubating.
Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Arbor Day is a special day that is set aside to raise awareness of trees and I was real aware of all the limbs I was picking up off my lawn. And the birds were aware of the trees as the warmer weather had a lot of courting occurring in the tree branches. There was flashes of blue as courtship was happening among some bluebirds. And the northern flickers were rather vocal as they chased each other among the branches.
A Northern Flicker
Maybe today will be the last day the American Tree Sparrow has to deal with snow as I noticed that white stuff in the ditch finally melted this afternoon. Although this bird must like snow as it will migrate farther north to breed this summer. And the bird is misnamed as the American Tree Sparrows are ground birds, foraging and nesting on the ground.
American Tree Sparrow
I was down by my pond today straightening the wood duck box poles (now that the frost is finally out of the ground) and spotted a few tiny fish swimming in the water. I also heard a bluebird so another bird has returned from the south so another sign of spring even if no wildflowers yet.
Bluebird Returns
Weather folklore says, “Spring will finally arrive after three snows on a robin’s tail.” Some people in the area have spotted some robins back, but I haven’t yet so I don’t know if the saying counts if it snows on a killdeer tail instead since the killdeers have returned. I rather not wait for the arrival of the robins if it snows this coming week and it doesn’t count towards the number of snowfalls needed on a robin’s tail.
Snow on Bird’s Tail
With temperatures above freezing and the sun out, I wasn’t the only one enjoying the day as there was a cardinal singing loudly in a tree this morning. I’m not sure if all the singing was for the weather or if there was love in the air.
Happy Cardinal
The number of birds at my feeders is less than previous years and so far I haven’t spotted any Redpolls this February like I have in past years.
Missing Redpoll
