Pages

March 29, 2011

Spring Birds

Blooms are always exciting and abundant in spring. I have plenty to show you, but not much time to blog about them. Instead, today I want to share a few birds that have caught my attention.

DSC_0030DSC_0040
DSC_0026
This hummingbird arrived about a week ago. It has been visiting my coral honeysuckle vine often and lingering long enough for me to leave the room, get my camera and take several minutes worth of pictures.

I'm glad to see that she (he?) prefers the vine to the sugar water feeder that is nearby. Last year, I was expecting hummers on my turk's cap blooms, but the birds opted the "fast food" feeders. It was disappointing. The blooms seems like a more wholesome food.

Golden Fronted Woodpecker Nest
Yesterday, I was very excited to learn that my dying maple tree is good for something. A pair of golden fronted woodpeckers that live in the area have chosen it for their nest.

Within the last week and a half, I've noticed that the usually timid woodpeckers have been strangely vigilant about chasing other birds away from the tree. This explains it. The pair is probably incubating eggs in there. If all goes well, in another week or so there will be 4-5 babies, and about a month after that, they should  be fledging. The maple tree is not long for this world. It has a lot of problems. It still hasn't leafed out, but thank goodness. If it had, we might not have seen the nest.

Golden Fronted Woodpecker DSC_0034
This is the male woodpecker. I can tell because he has the red splotch on his head. He's very furtive about taking peanut butter from the tree so forgive the bad shots, but I wanted you to see the proud parent.

5 comments:

  1. Yay hummingbirds! :) We have a big family of birds that sleep in our backyard tree - isn't that weird? They're not all even the same kind of birds, I don't think - but they all perch on the same branch every night.

    I'm emailing you tomorrow with some plant questions also. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. How exciting about your nesting woodpeckers. Yes, old trees do have a value. He looks like he has peanut butter all over his beak!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your hummingbird photos encourage me to be more vigilant about looking for them in my garden. The woodpecker nest is cool!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi I just found your blog on blotanical. Im excited to read about others in San Antonio doing some urban gardening!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for stopping by Josie. I'm so glad to hear from another San Antonio gardener. What part of the city are you in? I'm looking forward to following your adventures.

    ReplyDelete