I had to stop by the bank on Saturday morning — the parking lot was empty. When I stepped out to the car, a crow was standing in the parking space next to me. I took on photo of him, and then got closer for a second shot. He just stood there, kind of like Foghorn Leghorn, cocked his head sideways and gave me a “Go, I say go away boy, you bother me” look.
I captured the Finch Connection after I noticed Spunk looking out the window, watching the finches that were flitting around the branches and pulling seeds out of the many pods hanging from the leafless trumpet vine.
One last cosmos was hanging on among the dried ends of cosmos stems and brown, hardened sunflower stalks. A green butterfly landed in the mulch to warm itself in the sun before flying off to forage for what little flowers remained. I was going to start pulling up the dead sunflowers, but the finches and sparrows were still feeding on them, so they will remain standing awhile longer.
Beaker got a light bath from the late afternoon sun streaming through the window on his way to his cage on his stick. He liked the light bath, but he wasn’t so sure about the camera.
Baby Blue Grosbeak took his first flight out of the black bamboo and fluttered over to a sunflower. Daddy Blue Grosbeak hopped around near where baby had flown concerned about the paparazzo sneaking up on Baby Blue. Mama Blue Grosbeak fluttered around in the bamboo, but would not come out into the open. I got up close to Baby Blue, got some photos before he flew off into our giant Dr. Huey rose bush that made his papa and mama very happy.
The temperatures on Saturday and Sunday were much cooler, only getting up to 80º F, so the birds and the bees were actively foraging on our abundance of plants that are either in bloom or going to seed.
Laurie pointed out that there was a bluebird in the bamboo being attacked by a hummingbird — by the time I got outside with my camera, the bluebird was standing its ground atop the pear tree next to the bamboo. I did get one shot of the hummingbird confronting the bluebird.
So much for 105 @ 5:00. Our weather station reported a wind chill of 111º F (43.9º C) at 3:47 pm yesterday afternoon, about the time the birds were battling (see the last photo).
Adult and juvenile hummingbirds feeding on trumpet vine and taking breaks from buzzing around chasing each other.
This hummingbird flew up and hovered in front of me, I got it in focus, but it started flying off just as I released the shutter, moving out of the narrow focal plane.
A Cooper’s Hawk in the bosque by the Rio Grande near Alameda Bridge.
René was out in a jungly part of the catio checking things out from his high perch.
