New Technique

I was trying a new technique I saw on the internet where you can make the corner of the page look as if it is curling upward via Photoshop Elements. This is my first try at it so I think I'll make the corner a little bigger next time.

Beautiful Male Cardinal

House Shopping

We love the bluebirds that nest every year in a house mounted on our privacy fence. We try to help them all we can because they have fierce competition from the sparrows for that house. Pretty Mrs. Bluebird was very patient with me trying to get her picture the day I snapped this shot. Eventually, she said "Enough of you and that camera--I have eggs to hatch," and she went in the house and didn't come back out for a long time.

Melody the Mockingbird, A Tribute

Unless they possess some unusual characteristic, I think it is almost impossible to distinguish one mockingbird from another mockingbird. Our Melody had such a characteristic: her extensive repertoire of songs and her love for performing them. She lived here several years and she never tired of being in full verse for us when we ventured outdoors. Whatever we found to do outside, didn't matter to her--she would tag along with us and sing her songs for us. Visitors often were stricken with her audible accomplishments and made such remarks as “That is one happy mocking bird.”

Eventually, we became so curious about all of her happy chirping that we began attempting to explain and justify it as a natural result of some rescue encounters we'd had with those birds:

The first memorable encounter occurred several years ago when a late afternoon thunderstorm swept through here and we found, afterwards, that a baby mockingbird had been tossed from its mother's nest. We made the decision to intervene and rescue it because we didn't want it to become the victim of ants or night roaming creatures. It survived and we released it soon afterwards. The second very memorable encounter occurred a few years later and was much more dramatic. We noticed a mother mockingbird fearlessly dive bombing at an object on the ground and upon closer inspection, we discovered she was self-sacrificially trying to divert a large snake away from her nest of young hatchlings. We killed it (snake) to try to save her and her family. From the human perspective, we thought either of those occurrences, if connected to her in some way, could be justification for her liking us so fervently.

Unfortunately, we think her exuberant singing was what led to her demise this spring (2011). We found when walking through the yard one afternoon, a heap of mocking bird feathers scattered just below a favorite perch Melody liked to use to perform her songs. We hoped it wasn’t her, but evidence  that it had to be her became more and more undeniable. For instance, we Immediately realized the music had stopped and soon noticed that no mocking bird was following us about anymore. Therefore, we concluded that the feathers were  indeed  hers and that she must have been so busy rehearsing her songs that she didn't hear her stalker approach.  

We continue to have mocking birds sharing our property, but our presence doesn’t entice them to burst into jubilant singing and they just can't do "happy" the way Melody could do happy. 

Great Crested Flycacher

These little birds are like little Rod Stewarts with their spike-top hairdo's and  unusual voices. But they are pretty and he's, well, not. They have been returning to our backyard every spring for a number of years. They usually prefer the most dilapidated bird house on the property. If the other birds don't stop them, they will fill most of the other available bird houses with dummy nests. And we discovered they are very clever about the way they fill all those other birdhouses, too.  They leave a snakeskin in them  to frighten off the other birds. We were disturbed by the first skin we found when we cleaned out the houses, well  after mating season ended, and naturally jumped to the conclusion that a snake must have gotten their babies. But we found the same evidence in each house we cleaned. Later, I was browsing in a  bird encyclopedia and it corroborated my discovery with a statement  that said what I just said, that placing snake skins in dummy houses is something they are known for.