To Every Thing

There is a season...

Around here it's nesting season. You already probably know about the Mourning Dove nest on the sitting porch. Have I mentioned that I love that bird? She never ever moves (except to blink) when I am out there. It is refreshing to be able for the first time in years to share the porch with nesting birds and not have to go indoors every few minutes so the flaky  cautious parents can come back to feed babies or keep eggs warm.

Eastern Phoebe

There's also a pair of Eastern Phoebes that are nesting somewhere on or under the porch Alan built us a couple of years ago. I can't for the life of me spy the actual nest. I don't want to disturb the birds, which were carrying grass and twigs and now are shuttling large beaks full of insect material, so I don't go too close. I think that they're going through the lattice on the bottom and nesting underneath. Handy spot.

Then the other day I spotted a Carolina Wren sneaking into the freezer the kids left in the backyard....don't ask. Wrens are anything but subtle and Carolinas are the noisiest of the lot. I knew something was up.

I tiptoed up into the garden and sneaked a peek. There's a football-sized conglomeration of sticks and junk parked in the corner of the top shelf of the old thing. 

A little later a tiny brown projectile shot out through an opening on the side of the football.

Nice! Smart little critters. The freezer faces east, out of the prevailing winds, it's watertight, and thanks to its orientation to the house you can't see inside. I'm staying away from that part of the yard for now but I can't wait to see the nestlings when they hatch and fledge. Cutest little things....

Best one though:

We were on the way to purchase milk for the folks the other day, when we found the most exciting nest of the season.

As we drove through busy traffic on a feeder road leading to a main arterial highway through the county to the north of us, a large bird flew over the car quite low. I thought it was a Great Blue Heron at first, as something long was trailing behind. However, the something was a large branch not legs. The boss quickly stopped the car in a handy-dandy pull off right there.

The bird was an Osprey. I'd never seen one in that county before.

Amazingly there were TWO Osprey constructing a huge nest on top of a convenient cell phone tower right near a business building. Even though they are right in a semi-urban commercial area, but they seemed unbothered by traffic and travelers.

How cool is that?!?