Tag: Birds

This overrunning of the bird feeder may not seem like a photo opportunity, but in fact, it was not just the bird feeder that was being overrun. There were hundreds of starlings in the yard, dozens of robins and a garden variety of sparrows, cardinals, doves, woodpeckers and blue jays. ALL AT ONCE. It was like a scene out of The Birds where they just converged screaming and fighting among themselves while grabbing at berries, seeds and each other. 

Then it poured down rain and they all headed to the trees where they sat out the storm. They squawked and called and screeched and sang as it poured on them. It immediately stopped raining, and they flew away. My neighbor is convinced these birds were sent by her husband as he was dying to let her know it will all be okay. Who am I to say? This invasion only lasted a few minutes and they have never come back. 

Will you be filling the feeder with squirrels anytime soon?

Our red shouldered hawk found a great place to park himself when he waited to see if any of the squirrels would be nosing around the bottom of the feeder. He is an opportunist if nothing else. He spent the morning watching all of the oak trees for squirrel activity. Funny thing is, not a single squirrel was to be found!

Winter is here! The big woodpeckers have returned to demolish some of our more insect ridden tree branches. This is a pileated woodpecker, and we have a pair of them that come visit every year. She is in this photo, but hidden around one of the stalks of bamboo. They are large and love our rotten jacaranda tree. 

They have a very distinct and very loud call that echoes through the  yard and we all know when they have returned to roost. 

Normally, there is a blizzard of activity in the yard as squirrels scurry about pestering the cardinals at the bird feeder and digging in my plants. One afternoon, the movement all stopped and one little squirrel suddenly froze on the side of the oak tree.

So, I went to see what was going on. 
Here is what was going on. Apparently, this guy stopped in for a break and terrified the squirrels. He sat in the tree for about a half an hour, and that frozen squirrel never moved the whole time. 

Just when I thought I had seen all the birds I was going to see, I happened to look up from my desk and watch a  female turkey wander past the front of the house. So, I snatched up my camera and went out to take her photo. She was freakishly fast, and I ended up almost chasing her down the lane. I have a lot of  photos like this that may make a great little animated short. I don’t know where she came from, but I know she was hightailing it out of my yard!

This is a juvie ibis poking around in the yard.  He decided to help me plant flowers by poking holes in the yard. He spent a few days at my house ridding my yard of whatever it was that he was eating. Every now and then, the rest of his family would join him, and I would have a yard full of ibis wandering around. Eventually, they got tired of my yard and left. 

Apparently, I did not go out much in January, but the birds did. This is  just a small group of the hundreds of blackbirds that descended upon my backyard in a feeding frenzy. I am not sure what they are eating, but I am going to guess that they were picking up berries from the nasty old pepper trees. The ground was blanketed in some areas with birds, but this was as quick as I could point and shoot at that moment. Not very spectacular. Those are lemons on the ground. 

I don’t know what was going on or why they were doing this, but there was a great event going on in the sky one afternoon. As you can see, it was a clear, blue afternoon when all of these white pelicans suddenly decided to flock across the sky. There were a lot more, but I could only get so many of them into the shot. Now, I do live a block off the Sebastian River on the Sebastian Inlet where Pelican Island is located, so we do get a lot of these birds on a normal basis. Normally, they do not look like this; they usually fly in a long train formation. They must have been on their way to a dip in the river. 

You have to look closely, but there is a peacock strolling across my front yard. One day, I am sitting at my desk working and suddenly, there I look up and there is a peacock staring at me. He is about 4 feet from the window and by the time I grab the camera, he is moving across the yard. Not my peacock, but a random neighborhood peacock. I have heard him for months since I have been home, but this is the first time I have seen him. He wandered from my yard, hopped the fence and headed to the neighbor’s pond. Haven’t seen him since.

This osprey thinks that my antenna is the best place on the block to both watch the river for fish and eat them when he has them. He goes from our antenna to the neighbor’s antenna. Neither one of us use the antenna for anything other than a handy ladder to climb onto the roof.