18 August 2013 - Babies in the yard

I am not getting much done. There are too many babies in the yard and it is easy to wile away the hours watching their antics. Between the babies and the hummingbird wars, it is surprising that anything gets done around here. 

The current crop of babies includes downy woodpeckers, black-headed grosbeaks, robins, quail, goldfinches, house finches, bluejays, chickadees and sharp-shinned hawks. 

The grosbeak babies are surprising aggressive. I had a sprinkler going yesterday and many birds were enjoying the water. A little goldfinch was bathing in the wet grass, robins were looking for worms, and others were just happy to poke around in the soggy dirt. But the grosbeak wanted it all and would charge or chase anyone who got within three feet of him. 


A large rock has been attracting a bevy of little birds. I don't know what they were finding, but here are seven on the rock and the blur is one just leaving. 

A little later,  one of the baby downies landed on the same rock. When a finch landed beside it, the baby began to do the wing-flutter and feed me feed me wail. The finch ignored it. 

The baby moved to the cherry and proceeded to flutter and wail. It was pretty pathetic. When no one arrived to feed him he finally flew over to my mullen plant and started pecking away. Those mullens stalks are covered with seeds and lots of little bugs. Not sure what he was eating. 

The fledgling sharp-shinned hawks are eating way too many of my yard birds. 

Three weeks ago, you might remember I had 11 baby quail. So cute! 

Now I am down to only three. My guess is that it is due to the hawks. The quail are pretty easy catches. This baby is eating what may be another baby. 

Speaking of eating, I would like to know what is eating my vines. 
I spent some time inspecting leaves looking for caterpillars, bugs, anything to explain the skeletal remains, but found nothing... so far. 

This is pretty sad. The highest leaves are in the worst shape. 


Must be some sort of stealth eaters?