May birds

I have been enjoying the birds this month!

  
The orioles have loved the oranges and "mikan" (or cuties) I have put out for them along with the grape jelly.

 I find I have to resupply daily!

 The orioles have been singing in my snowball bush, just outside my bedroom window.  LOVING it!

We daily have battled with the sparrows as they continually try 

to occupy the purple martin apartments!

The great egrets continue to visit our creek.  And my resident bunny who lives under our spirea.

This month's bird walk was such fun!  I'm not sure if it was because it was so very early, or if there were just so many activities (city garage sales, etc) but there were only 4 of us on the bird walk and the 3 others were expert birders!  

 foggy morning

So, instead of the usual 1 1/2 hour walk, we took over 3 as we stopped often to just observe and listen!

                                                                                Mississippi kite

Blue bird feeding her young

We saw so many birds this day!  It is hard to capture them on camera.  It will become even more so as the trees leaf out. We saw or heard the great crested flycatcher, blue jays, wood thrush, red starts, yellow-rumped warblers, warbling vireo, winter wren, brown thrashers (who imitate with 2 consecutive calls unlike the mockingbird that makes 7 calls at a time), and sharp-shinned hawk. 

I learned some new bird calls this time, along with some ones I already could identify.  

The rapid chipping of the bells vireo - chiree chiree chee chiree chiree choo.

Harris sparrow's 2 long note song.  The blue jays 3 note call.  

The "tea-kettle" call of the carolina wren or the "here I am, look at me, here I am, up in the tree, way up here!" call of the red eyed vireo.

The bzzz bzzz sound of the sparrow.  Each bird has several different kinds of calls.  I don't know how to keep them all straight, but I'm trying to learn!