What's blooming today?
Wordless Wednesday
Squirrels sure do some crazy things to get to those tasty seeds don’t they?
Do you have any funny tales or photos of animals doing something silly on your property?
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We had some unexpected guests in our garden earlier this week. I believe it was on Sunday morning or possibly Monday.
My husband and I were in the kitchen when he turned and said “Look, Look a Blue Jay!” and just outside the window in a window planter a lovely male Blue Jay was examining the remnants of the flower box. There’s still some snap dragons and annual geraniums in the box … dead of course because of the cold, but I expect the Jay was after the seed heads that were still on the plants.
We watched the Blue Jay fly around our yard for a short while before it disappeared. It visited a few different plants and then sat at the bird feeder in the center of the yard.
After the Blue Jay disappeared we were about to leave the kitchen … discussing how we’d better fill our Suet containers later that day … and then I saw a light colored bird with reddish tones to it’s feathers enter the yard and sit in the Rose of Sharon tree. I believe it was a female Cardinal.
The Cardinal was quite happy to sit in the Rose of Sharon and on the fence nearby for a little while before it too disappeared.
To the best of my knowledge Cardinals and Blue Jays don’t get along all that well … well …. I don’t think Blue Jays like many other birds in their immediate territory.
I hope they both come back though. We filled a few suet baskets and topped up the seeds in two of our bird feeders.
I know that there’s been a blue jay around for a few years. I don’t see it often, but I hear it calling out as it flies around the immediate neighborhood. I’ve also see the male cardinal around a few times over the last few years as well.
We have a number of birds that frequent our yard, but most are quite common birds. I suppose Jays and Cardinals are common enough too but we don’t see them often so they are special visitors to our garden.
I suppose I’ll take the birds visits as a compliment to my garden. It’s maturing and I’ve been careful to grow plants that a number of birds and butterflies enjoy. It seems to be paying off because each year there is more and more wildlife in my garden.
I’ll keep an eye out for my little visitors and try to get some photos.
Guess what!
I just about had a heart attack on Sunday. I was standing in the kitchen talking to my husband and I turned my head to look out the window at the garden and some fluttering by the hummingbird feeder caught my eye.
I realized that I was seeing the first hummingbird of the season!
I had just taken a Tylenol because I had an awful migraine on Sunday (in fact I still have a headache!). In fact I’m not even sure that I’d finished swallowing the pill when I saw the hummingbird. I was so surprised all I could do was point out the window and go “Oh” “oh” “oh”.
I scared my husband. He thought something was wrong with me so he wasn’t even looking out the window where I was pointing. I either finally spit out the word hummingbird or he turned his head enough to see the bird examining the feeder.
We’ve only had one hummingbird that we actually saw before and that was three years ago! We’ve since purchased and extra hummingbird feeder and I guess it paid off.
So we were both staring out the window amazed that a little colorful hummingbird had bestowed a visit upon us when my husband decided to try to get the camera. I wanted to take photos, but overall I was more interested in watching the bird rather than running to get the camera and losing those precious seconds of hummingbird sightseeing.
He did manage to get my new SLR digital camera for me before the bird flew away. Luckily it takes several photos in a row so I managed to take about 20 pictures before it took off.
While the hummingbird was visiting it hovered around the bird feeder. I was surprised that it tried to get at the top of the clear glass bird feeder even after it had found the feeding stations in the bottom. It also visited the purple petunias that were nearby, two or three of the white phlox plants, the Rose of Sharon, and I think it also hovered near the bee balm. It even rested on the clothes line three times. We also have another hummingbird feeder near the back of the yard beside the huge rose bush William Baffin. The hummingbird visited that feeder and possibly the purple clematis Jackmani beside it.
As I said I do have photos. I just haven’t uploaded them to the computer yet. I’ll post some of the better photos soon.
I’m going to be looking out my kitchen window a lot more often now that I know we have hummingbird that’s discovered our feeders!