20080822 - Birds

We are finally making some headway with the hummers. I bought some new food for them and it seems they did not like it and the bees did. I finally had to throw one of the feeders away. The bees kept crawling into it and dying. I found where I could buy the old food, Bought some, bought a new feeder and they are finally back. We have two feeders; one in the front that we can see from the dining area and the study, and one in the back that I can watch from the bedroom, great room and the studio. The feeder in the front has a bird every 20 minutes or so during their feeding time and the feeder in the back will have several at a time. Hummingbirds (at least the ones here) don’t share well. We have a wooden parrot outside in the back and a hummer will sit on the perch and watch the feeder. Any time another hummingbird comes around she will swoop in and chase it off. I’m guessing ‘she’ because she is not very brightly colored. After some time she will leave and then after doing some dancing around we may have three or four birds feeding at the same time. ‘Dancing’ meaning chasing each other around the feeder. In between the butterflies, the finches, and the hummers, the back yard is alive. I love it.

Parrot and the hummer The large and the small


Hummingbird feeder with 3 birds and one in flight.


These are some of the other feeders. I think mostly finches? They are very happy to share



Can anyone identify the bird on the top right?


I also saw a road runner in the back yard. I just glanced out there while I was on the phone and he was running through the yard. You can imagine how surprised I was. He was too fast for a photo.

This is a photo of a bird on the fence. It did not look like the doves or Quail we usually get. Any ideas what he/she is?