Tales From the Bird Sanctuary: Summer fun

It was a busy summer in the bird sanctuary, with many, many visitors, some the old reliables I’ve I’ve seen before, but also some new faces and today, i’d like to share some of them with you.

• I’ve had the little yellow-bellied warblers in the first photo this year for the first time. I think they are warblers, but have been unable to identify the type as yet.
• White Nuthatches are year round residents. The one in the photo is a juvenille. I always talk about seeing babies, but in truth, I never see the babies. If they are old enough to be where I can see them, they are juvenilles, but they are still awfully cute and I enjoy watching them.
• The third photo is an unidentified baby or juvenille. I would guess it to be some type of wren. You can tell it is a young one because of the ruffled appearance caused by the fine baby feathers which haven’t all been shed.
• Black-Headed Grossbeaks are summer residents and I’ve seen several youngsters raised each summer. They are gluttons who like to clean out my feeders. The one in the photo sat there eating for a long time, hogging up the whole feeder.
• I watch for the American Robins to return as a sure sign that spring has arrived. They have babies twice a year, so I’ve watched several Robin families grow up, and although I can’t be sure, I think the babies return as adults to raise their own families the next year.
• The Western Tanager is one of the most colorful birds I’ve ever seen in the wild. Although I have seen them in years past occassionally, this year, I had them in droves. I believe I mentioned this in my last post from the sanctuary, when talking of my colorful trees.
• Woodpeckers are frequent visitors, and some years they nest in the sanctuary. The one in the seventh photo is either a Strickland’s or a Nutall’s Woodpecker. I’m not sure which.
• Hummingbird’s and welcome visitors every year. The green-backed Rufus Hummingbirds arrive in the spring, even earlier than the Robins. In July, I get the Allen’s Humminbirds, which are orange and more aggressive. When they arrive the skies become a flyzone as the Hummingbird wars begin. The one in the eighth photo is a Rufus Humminbird who stopped to perch atop a Mullien plant and say good morning.
• The Turkey Vulture was a surprise visitor which I had only seen one other time. They are birds, but not the kind I put out food for, so they usually don’t pay the santuary much mind. But this guy dropped in unexpectedly and hung out a few minutes, long enough for me to snap some photos. When he flew away, his wingspan was huge. They are ugly, but majestic birds, bigger than hawks, but perhaps about the size of eagles.
• In the first picture below you see both a woodpecker and a Cassin’s Finch. Woodpeckers often hang on the bottom of the feeder as their size makes perching difficult. They also hang from the hummingbird feeders, not for the nectar, but for the ants that it attracts. The Cassin’s Finch always look to me like someone splashed red paint over their heads, a glimpse of bright red or pink in a sea of green pine boughs.
• On the ground in the second picture below is a juvenille mourning dove from the second batch of babies I’ve seen this year.

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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; and book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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