Stunning!

Earlier today, while in my office, I heard a loud bang on a window somewhere.  Going to check, the girls, who were in the kitchen, were also wondering what the noise was.  We’ve had many birds hitting our windows lately, and that seemed likely, but never this loud!

So I went outside to check.  Sure enough, I found a stunned bird on the ground, outside the dining room window.

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When I first picked it up, it was panting and groggy.

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After a while, it was doing better, but still stayed in my hand.  Happily, it did not seem to be injured.

I waited a while, then put it near a tree branch, but it still stayed in my hand.

So I sat on the steps at our front door (which, I’ve discovered, we cannot open.  The inside door opens, but the outside screen door is stuck, as if painted shut.  My brother had removed it to fix it, and it had been working fine in the fall!) and waited.

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As I sat, Rolando Moon came by, curious, but not curious enough to climb the steps.  Instead, she moved to the corner of the house and settled in.

Eventually, the bird flew into one of the bushes.

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It still stayed for a while before moving to another branch, then continued to hang out for a while before finally leaving.

As I was still sitting with it, however, I saw out of the corner of my eye, Rolando Moon suddenly spin around, pounce on something, then run off with something in its mouth.

After the bird went into the tree, I went around the house to see, thinking Rolando Moon had maybe caught a rodent.

I was wrong.  It was another bird.

I now wonder if there had been a second stunned bird that I did not notice before, because of how close it was to the house.

Now I’m torn between happy that we saved the one bird, but sad that we lots another at the same time.

I had taken a bunch of short videos and have put them together in a playlist.

I hope you enjoy them. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Birds, Birds, Birds!

Well, today has definitely been a day of the birds!

From what I’ve been able to find, the “new” birds are dark eyed juncos.  They would be returning from overwintering elsewhere.  There were only a few yesterday, but today, there was tonnes! I now realize that we did see them last year.  I had just not been able to look at them so closely at the time.  But I definitely remember seeing this…

(I don’t know why the video quality is so bad after uploading it to YouTube!)

There were masses of juncos and redpolls swooping in and out, with many, many bounces off the windows.  Even the dining room window was getting hits.

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We are starting to see a lot more of the male redpolls now, too.

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Of course, all that activity attracted a watcher…

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Trüllbus wasn’t able to do much more than watch from the lilac bush, though! LOL

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Love how my daughter caught this redpoll, peeking at her through the twigs.  He looks angry! :-D

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From what I could find, there is quite a variety of juncos, but it does look like these are dark eye juncos, and the lighter coloured ones are the females.  The one in the photo above would be a male.

At one point, as I stood near the window, something startled them and the whole flock took off.  Three or four of them bounced off the window, right in front of me.  After they were gone, I realized that one had been left behind.

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At first, from inside the house, I wasn’t even sure if was a bird or if it was some darker foliage.  After a while, though, I could see the beak.  Ever so slowly, the beak opened, and stayed open.  Eventually, I decided to go out and check on it.  When I got close, it was aware enough to watch me, and even start to move a bit.  I was able to pick it up, though, and then it flew away from my hand.  No injuries.

Besides the birds, some deer did make a showing when my husband was up bright and early, but I have not seen any since.  I’m hoping some will show up this evening.

The Re-Farmer