Updates

We participated in the Chimney Swift count last night. Our site was St Paul's church in Milton. We had a good time (despite the pouring rain!) and we are happy to report that both chimneys are used by the swifts for roosting. I'm looking forward to seeing the results for all the Halton sites.

Dave took pictures of our nesting boxes today. Seven eggs in the House Wren box, Unknown for the Tree Swallows because mamma or daddy was not budging! Five each for the Barn Swallows and the Eastern Bluebirds. Fantastic results! House Wren Nest

Barn Swallow Nest

Simon helping with the nesting box check:

Tree Swallow telling us it's none of our business what's going on in there:

Bluebird nesting box:

We are also seeing adult birds come to the feeders and take heaping amounts of food and fly off with it, so we know there are others nesting in the trees etc- Grackles, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Baltimore Oriole (haven't seen the female in a few days, so assume she is busy on the nest), Red-bellied Woodpecker (again, the male is visiting quite a bit- especially the grape jelly feeder!), Rose-breasted Grosbeak (seeing the male only. And as an aside, we have not had the larger numbers of male and female Grosbeaks we normally do. We had a few males for a few days- up to three, I think and maybe two females. After that, it's just been the single pair. Would be curious to know if their numbers are down this year?).

As for Bobolinks, I have seen two males. That's it. Maybe it's still early? But the fields we normally see them in have had some of their fencing removed, so the males don't have the same number of posts to perch on. I'll spend more time out there this week to see what's going on. The Northern Flicker has been very noisy lately, but this was the first sighting I'd had of him in awhile:

Also, we've had a Red Squirrel out here the last week or so. We have never seen one here before. I need to find out if that's a unique sighting. I have no idea if they are really in the area or not.