WHERE DID THEY GO?

I have been desperately watching my hummingbird feeder for the past couple of weeks and it seems that they have gone somewhere. I haven’t seen any for the past week or so, and when that happens I begin to go into Bird Withdrawal. It’s a real condition that us birders get quite often when our favorite species does not show up.

I got some good video (below) on May 21st of a male Rufous Hummingbird at my feeder, and then later I happened to see two female Anna’s going to our Salvia plant that is right beside the seed feeder. I think this is the first time I have seen two hummers at the same plant at the same time. Of course, it didn’t last long because they started chasing each other off. They definitely do not like to share! I think they visited every single blossom on the Salvia plant.

We’ve had a lot of visits lately from our resident Scrub Jays. We have been seeing three of them, and I believe it is Mom, Dad, and the Kid. One has a much shorter tail and beak, so I’m guessing that is the youngster. I was doing some yard work the other day and I spotted him inside our golden currant hedge. I whipped out my phone and started taking some video (below), trying my best to locate him within the hedge. All of a sudden I heard a noise right in front of me and I looked down to see the baby right there, about three feet away. I kept videoing and tried my best to be still, but he kept looking at me, probably wondering what that big thing was. Later, Mom showed up and sat atop the fence while Junior was perched on top of our neighbor’s roof.

BABY SCRUB JAY LOOKING ASKANCE AT ME

One morning I threw a bunch of my old garden seeds out underneath the feeder in hopes that something would eat them. Included was a bag of corn seeds, and since the birds eat the cracked corn we buy, I thought they might eat those seeds. Well, no…and it may be because these corn seeds were not cracked…but also because they are red. They look like bits of candy in this video below, and the Jay gives them some quizzical looks. He wasn’t too sure about those red things!

MAMA JAY GIVING ME THE SIDE EYE

WHAT’S BLOOMING

Last year I transplanted a couple of small peony plants from beside the mother plant over next to the driveway so they would get more sun. The mother plant is still mostly in the shade beside our Thundercloud Plum tree. Well, this year one of the transplants had a blossom and it is open right now. What a difference some sunlight makes! This bloom is absolutely gorgeous. It has probably helped that we have had a lot of rain (for this area) this year. I took a few shots of the peony over the last few days of it opening up. The mother plant has three blooms on it but they are several days away from opening.

MY LOVELY PEONY

Speaking of the rain we’ve had this spring, we actually had a thunderstorm the other night and it poured. Everything was wet the next morning and I took some pictures of the rain drops on our Solomon Seal plants.

Our volunteer Snapdragons and Violas that come up every year have been especially beautiful this year. I am glad we are getting some benefit from the wet and cool spring because in other areas it has been a drawback. The cherry season this year is going to be later than usual, and our friends at Johnson’s Fruit Stand are telling us that it is not going to be as good as in years past. This makes me sad because our local cherries are one of my favorite things.

SNAPDRAGON (TOP), VIOLA (BOTTOM LEFT), AND SOLOMON SEAL (BOTTOM RIGHT)

PARTING SHOT

The other day while I was sitting on the front porch, Summer Girl decided to join me. Right after we got settled in, up came Mr. Scrub Jay. He was not too happy about Summer Girl being there, but she was not bothered by him at all. Although he voiced his opinion very loudly, she was unfazed.

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