A busy Bird Morning

      This morning was an extremely busy morning in my backyard as far as birds go. I saw 12 species from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM.

       I live in a very regular urban subdivision. We have many trees in our yards. We have open spaces for parks that have lots of trees. As nice as this environment is , it's not great bird habitat. All these plants and trees are not natural and the birds know that. Once in a while you get lucky and see many birds in a short time. Usually we see a few chickadees, nuthatches, house sparrows and the odd other bird most days. It's not an active bird habitat. I see from 30 to 35 species per year in my yard.

      Now the fall migration of songbirds is at it peak. So this morning many of these birds found my backyard, and vegetable garden in particular, a good place to have breakfast.

     From 7:30 to 9:30 I saw: White throated sparrows, white breasted nuthatch, red breasted nuthatch, house wren, yellow warbler, black capped chickadee, blue jay, house finch, house sparrow, hummingbird, robin and white crowned sparrow. There were a couple of LBJ's that I couldn't identify and also a couple of warblers.

     The white throated sparrows put on a great show. They run at a tremendous speed and scoot around under the heavy garden vegetation. They chase each other.

     The humming bird spent a whole two minutes with me today.

      Various flocks of robins will pass through for the next 6 weeks. Some will stay all year. Robins from further north keep coming south. Robins have been found nesting on Banks Island in the Arctic. It will take them a long time to get this far south.

     And yes , you're going to have to trust me on this one. I did not get one photo. I was looking through my window into the light and into a dark garden. That's not the best light for photos. There also was a nasty reflection in my window glass. If I went outside , that would have ended the bird visit immediately. 

    There will be more song birds coming through for the next month. I'll be watching. I'm expecting three species of black birds and lots of yellow rumped warblers. The yellow rumps seem to stick around for most of September.