Blackbirds

For the third consecutive afternoon, the yard and trees are filling with hundreds and hundreds of blackbirds- maybe there's more than a thousand out there in the trees, on the lawns, railings, fences, driveway, and neighbouring fields. It's incredible and a sign that the migrating flocks are gathering. The group seems to be made up of mostly Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds. I see very few Starlings (good) and have not seen any Cowbirds as of yet. There are many, many juveniles in the group, most just getting their adult feathers or the young male RWBB with their red patches on their wings.

We have lots of Hummingbirds around. I have not seen any Grosbeaks in a few days, although Dave said he has seen a few. I just had a Baltimore Oriole at the jelly feeder, but that was the first I'd seen in a few days as well. The House Wrens had their second round of babies and they have all fledged. There's a single unhatched egg in one of the two boxes they used.

Of note is that we have a second brood of Bluebirds in the nesting box. That male House Sparrow chased them away from their nesting box, but the pair perservered and took the box the Tree Sparrows had finished with and simply built a nest on top of the old one in there. There are four babies hatched! And we saw the fledglings from the first batch hanging around, so we had a record high of eight Bluebirds on site last week! I hope they are all successful and continue to grow and have nesting success.