Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Yard men and Western kingbirds

Since I've set up bird feeders at Evelyn and Gene's house, I've moved one of their chairs to be my "viewing" spot. I was planning to end my day watching the evening visitors. Before I got out there, we heard Sissy barking at the fence. The long awaited yard men were here to do the mowing and trimming. I went ahead and move to the chair. I figured that I would not see many birds at the feeder until the loud mowing was done . . . and, indeed, this was the case. But I was treated to an amazing display of sight and sound as about a dozen kingbirds flew all around the trees in the yard. They were very chattery. Some were territorial chasing others away. But they kept moving all around the trees and singing up a storm. I noticed that when the mowers moved to the back are of the yard down by the lake, the kingbirds left. It was only later that I realized that my kingbird visitors were in the yard to take advantage of any insects disturbed by the mowing. After the kingbirds left, I stayed in my chair and was rewarded by seeing a male house finch and a black crested titmouse.

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