Tuesday Evening Birding and Peregrine Falcon Update

Tufts update courtesy of Emily. The x-rays show no fractures. Tufts is hoping to get the young Peregrine into a flight cage tomorrow for observation. If all goes well, than she shouldn't be there too long.

Photo above is of one of my many Cedar Waxwings eating the mulberries from my tree this morning. I also had my first Baltimore Orioles on the tree today and they are always the last to eat the berries because they like them very ripe. The American Goldfinches have been busy too. They don't eat the fruit but the seeds within the fruit which is intriguing to watch.


Did some birding this evening with Alan and Sharon H. Sharon wanted to see the Red-tailed Hawk and her chicks. Picture above is digiscoped and kind of blurry. Love those eyes though and the yellow on end of its bill.

Lousy shot of one letting out a soft cry. So cute to watch

Check out the plumage it is starting to get. Notice how the plumage around its chest is still bare. Still have more development to go to get ready for fledging. I did notice they they have more feathers than last Friday though.

A Blue Jay above gets ready to attack the female. She tries her best to ignore this as the young chicks watch. Poor things have no idea how common this will be for them too real soon.

A digiscoped photo of an Eastern Bluebird taken at the same location (female)

Next it was onto St. Phillips and the wetlands behind the cemetery so we could show Sharon the Green Herons we are presuming are breeding there. We did see them but they were too quick for a decent picture! What we did see though was this Eastern Bluebird going into her natural nesting cavity.

I had witnessed this myself a little over a week ago. I didn't see her enter the snag per say, but I knew she wanted to and wouldn't because I was real close. I backed off to give her some space and then saw her disappear into a snag that I was unable to locate.

I thought nothing of it really and continued to bird. I later found out from Alan that the Breeding Bird Atlas is very interested in information regarding Eastern Bluebirds nesting in natural cavities so I was thrilled to get some digital photos of it. We also saw a bluebird feeding her begging recently fledged babies so it's nice to see that several pairs of bluebirds have been successful thus far.

Last but not least, and amusing photo of a Belted Kingfisher and a Downy Woodpecker. How cool is this. Birds are so funny sometimes. It made for a cute photo as they were both perched in the same location and didn't even seem to notice one another.

Have a great week everyone!!