With the trees beginning to leaf out, the orioles have arrived. And they must have been hungry from their trip north as one sugar water feeder was already empty and the other probably will need filling in the morning too. The Baltimore Orioles young males do not molt into their bright orange color until the fall of their second year.
Baltimore Oriole Arrived
More birds have returned adding additional voices outdoors, including the grosbeaks and the loud song from the tiny wrens. And this evening, the humming of tiny wings was heard as the hummingbird danced near the feeder. With their short legs, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird doesn’t walk but shuffles along a perch.
Shuffling Hummingbird
My lawn had a moving motion to it with all the birds covering the ground the last few days as the returning sparrows and warblers look for seeds. Many of them are the White-throated Sparrow with their patch of yellow and white throat. The White-throated Sparrow and the Dark-eyed Junco have been known to occasionally mate and produce hybrids.
White-throated Sparrow
Even though there were snowflakes in the morning, by afternoon more spring birds made their appearance again, like this Yellow-rumped Warbler, who is a versatile forager from catch flying insects to eating berries.
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Another bird has arrived but the Brown Thrasher wasn’t singing this morning, probably since it is still way below average and the trees are not budded out as far as when I took this picture during a warmer spring. If he was singing, his song includes imitations of other birds and over a thousand of different song types.
Brown Thrasher Not Singing
The Northern Flickers have ventured north again and they prefers to find their food on the ground, especially ants and they use their long barbed tongue to eat them.
Northern Flickers Return
With snowflakes flying most every day, spring is slow coming and the spring birds are probably wondering why they came back so soon. But at least this sparrow didn’t have the trouble like the loons that dropped from the sky after getting coated with ice and they are unable to fly if the loons didn’t fall in water as they need big stretches of water to take flight again.
Sparrow in Snow
I’m not sure where the trumpeter swans went to when they passed over head earlier this month heading north as my pond is still frozen, but hopefully they found some open water. The trumpeter swans are our biggest native waterfowl, weighing more than 25 pounds and a wing scan of over 6 feet. My pond is too little for these swans as they need 100-yard runway to get airborne.
Trumpeter Swan
With a narrow strip of ground showing aside the driveway where the snow was plowed off, the returning robins finally have a place to land that isn’t cold from that white stuff. And hopefully no more snow will cover the tiny patch of lawn.
Robin Returns
With all the snow on the ground, it is hard to remember that it is spring – at least according to the calendar – but another sign that spring may be coming was the return of the red-winged blackbirds as they voiced their arrival rather noisily today as they perched high in the trees (to stay far away from the snow).
Red-winged Returns
