Spring's Batch of Baby Birds
It’s late spring and babies are appearing. Little squirrels race in the trees and little birds learn to fly. It's a vulnerable time for these new arrivals.
When you have bird feeders, you often have squirrels too. The picture posted with my article Squirrels and Birdfeeders, shows a red squirrel visiting my platform feeder. For a while, we weren't sure if there was one squirrel or two, but now we know there were at least two, because the baby squirrels are here. They seem to chatter from dawn until disk.
It's the season for baby birds as well, and they seem to be everywhere. Yesterday, I saw my first fledgling Dark-eyed Junco of the year, looking more like a Song Sparrow than a Junco, but smaller. I haven't seen it since, but I saw two petite Mourning Doves on the long sloping grey rock behind the house, a favorite place for birds. An adult seemed to be deliberately harassing them, and I wondered why. My husband thought the older bird might be trying to teach them to stay alert.
The Blue Jays are back, after an absence - even when I don't see them, I can hear them calling from the trees. But is it the old adults or the young adults I'm seeing and hearing now? I hope the nesting was successful. Some birds are having a harder time finding good nesting sites and safely rearing their young than used to be the case. Piping Plovers are one example. Piping Plovers nest on beaches and have not been too successful competing for beach space with sun loving people. Their nesting sites and their numbers are declining and they are now endangered. Watch my upcoming articles for information about the efforts to save Piping Plovers.
My husband told me he'd seen another young bird on the golf course. He was looking for a lost ball near the bushes and saw the little bird sitting on a low branch and looking helpless only a couple of feet away. Above him, adult birds fussed and tried to distract him. It's a risky time for young birds just learning to fly - they are so vulnerable. If my husband had been a fox, it would have been all over for that little bird.
And speaking of foxes, they and birds, especially ducks, go back a long time. Next week, I'll write about curious ducks, and how they keep falling for tolling foxes.
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