Love and Hate in the Bird World: May 2021

Common Terns come to our area in the warm weather months to breed.

Common Tern

The tail is forked,

Common Tern
Common Tern

the cap is black

Common Tern

and the bill is red-orange with a black tip:

Common Tern

The feet are orange-red:

Common Tern

MYSTERY BIRD

I will identify it at the end of the post.

Common Terns adapt readily to artificial floating rafts, and even nest on flat factory roofs. This is where I found a colony today near Col. Sam Smith Park.

Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Tern

I was surprised, however, to see how caring the males and females are to each other. After long sessions of sitting on the eggs in the nest, one bird will eagerly greet its mate who is arriving with food.

Common Terns
Common Tern
Common Tern
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Terns
Common Tern
Common Tern

Birds can also be pretty nasty with each other as these gulls demonstrate:

Ring-billed Gull
Ring-billed Gulls
Ring-billed Gulls
Ring-billed Gulls
Ring-billed Gulls

Other birds:

Long-tailed Duck (male)
Red-necked Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Red-winged Blackbird (female)
Song Sparrow
Brown-headed Cowbird (female)
Ring-billed Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Mourning Dove
Field Sparrow
Mute Swan
Warbling Vireo
Baltimore Oriole
House Sparrow (female)
American Robin
Yellow Warbler (male)

Tree Swallows appear very blue in colour:

Tree Swallow
Tree Swallow

A glance at this bird taking nesting material into a box shows that under the blue, there is a lot of brown:

Tree Swallow
Tree Swallows
Tree Swallows
Tree Swallow
Tree Swallow

MYSTERY BIRD

The well-named Common Yellowthroat:

Common Yellowthroat (male)

MAILBOX

I am subscribed to a youtuber from Manchester named Kaylee Ellen who owns this fascinating rare plant shop in the UK; she puts out a lot of interesting videos about plant care, etc but I recently found this video she made last year about opening up her plant shop, creating the layout, shopping for inventory, etc and I thought it was really well done – I figured I’d share it with you in case you’re interested. Look at the size of some of these plants!! Incredible.  



I felt this sense of pride – like so incredibly proud of her for achieving this dream of hers and a bonus for getting this amazing content for us viewers. 

NATURE POETRY

Whoever makes a garden
Has never worked alone;
the rain has always found it,
The sun has always known.                      – Douglas Malloch (1877–1938)

Miles Hearn


2 thoughts on “Love and Hate in the Bird World: May 2021

  1. Anouchka

    As always, you educate and entertain, Miles. Awesome theme. Meegan and I saw several Common Terns at Sam Smith last week, and watched their diving and scouting antics, soaring from one corner of the bay to another. Felt like we were being teased a little with their fly-bys (much preferred over the clouds of midges).

    Reply
  2. Lisa Volkov

    Thanks for the theme and commentary, Miles! It’s wonderful to witness bird (or animal) behavior, and have it explained, too Very educational, and fascinating to witness. Thanks, Miles!

    Reply

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