Cliff Swallows Feeding Near Singer Creek Bridge photos by Larry Jordan
I travelled to Chico yesterday to check on our Burrowing Owl that moved into the artificial burrows we installed last month. I didn’t see the owl on this trip but I found a large flight of Cliff Swallows feeding at Singer Creek bridge where we had seen another Burrowing Owl last month.
These birds are amazing to watch as they feed, on the wing, in groups sometimes numbering in the thousands.
I recorded a video this morning when I found another flight of Cliff Swallows at a bridge near Oak Run. I wanted to show how fast these birds maneuver and record their calls as they feed.
Western Bluebird Male Claims New Home photos by Larry Jordan
As I began my monitoring of the Bluebird Trail at Lema Ranch I saw a Tree Swallow attached to the front of the house, peering into the entrance hole. He looked something like this.
I thought to myself, well, it looks like the first Tree Swallows are here and taking the first nest box on the trail. That’s when the pair of Western Bluebirds swooped down to make sure the Tree Swallows knew “this house is taken.”
I clicked off a shot of the action as quickly as I could but it doesn’t do the event justice. You can see in this photo the female bluebird’s head is sticking out of the nest box as the male bluebird (upper left) is chasing away the two swallows (middle top and center).
And the happy couple sitting atop their newly claimed home, wondering what I’m doing here 😉
I will be monitoring three Bluebird Trails again this year. One at Lema Ranch, one at Palo Cedro Community Park and one in Oak Run. I will keep you updated on these nest sites, as well as other nests I happen to find.
You can be a nest watcher too. If you want to learn how you can be part of this citizen science project go to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s NestWatch site for all the information. You might be able to watch bluebirds grow up from eggs like these I have in my first occupied bluebird nest box of 2010 in Oak Run.
This is what’s happening in my world. To find out what’s happening in other places around the world, visit My World!
Bushtit Female Building Nest photos by Larry Jordan
On a bird outing yesterday with the local Audubon Society, we tallied 60 species on a trip that didn’t take us far from home. The area surrounding Redding California has a rich diversity of habitats including, mountains, lakes, oak savannah, coniferous forest, riparian, wetlands and plains. This outing was mostly in oak savannah and on the plains of Millville.
A few of the highlights for me were an American Bittern in flight, the first Cliff Swallows of the year, as well as Rough-winged, Tree and Violet-green Swallows and an immature Golden Eagle! But the best part of the day was watching a pair of Bushtits building a nest in a live oak tree.
You can see the female Bushtit in the top photo looking like she is entangled in spider webs but she knows what she’s doing. From the look of this nest, this isn’t her first trip aroung the block. Here she is adding some material to the top of the nest and shaping it.
Each excursion for building materials brought them back to the entrance of this elaborate, pendulous, gourd-shaped sac of spider webs and plant material, where they took turns placing the material inside the sac. The female did most of the shaping inside the sac which shook like a bowl full of jelly as she worked.
Here is a shot of the male with a beak full of stuff to add.
Do you remember how to tell the female from the male Bushtit? I wrote about it in a previous post. It’s all in the eyes.
I began the morning before sunrise at Delevan National Wildlife Refuge. It was a cold morning with rain falling off and on but I did manage to get a few shots from the photo blind. I was also able to watch some incredible courtship behavior of the Green-winged Teal.
There were large groups of Green-winged Teal with the males showing a series of courtship displays to the females and some threat displays to other males. I enjoyed watching them through the bins and I photographed a few but they were pretty far away.
There were Northern Pintails in with the Green-winged Teal and some American Wigeon that I caught sneaking by the blind
Social Media Connect