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Summertime Birds

© Terrie Murray

SUMMERTIME IN THE BACKYARD

This morning as I was making a cup of tea I looked through the kitchen window into my backyard and observed a yard full of fledgling birds. Even though I never was successful in getting any birds to nest in my two nestboxes (I'll try new locations next year), the birds obviously found someplace else they were happy with! A fledgling robin was preening in the sunshine, fluffing the feathers on its spotted breast. No less than five fledgling scrub jays have been chasing each other around the trees for a couple of weeks now, racing like young hoodlums to see who can get to the peanut halves in my window feeder the fastest. The house finches are so numerous now that they're emptying my largest tube feeder every three days - - the same amount that lasts for ten days to two weeks in the wintertime. Two juvenile Anna's hummingbirds, a male and a female, have joined the adult pair which has been coming to my hummingbird feeder. And my favorites, a family of black-capped chickadees, fly companionably through the yard eating take-out sunflower seeds, calling softly to one another to keep track of their locations. Two young northern flickers visited the yard yesterday, drinking deeply from the bird bath and digging in the platform feeders for seeds and bugs. And, the most amusing of all, a young song sparrow has become transfixed by his reflection in our basement window, perching on the deck railing and singing lustily, and every few minutes flying towards the window to give his reflection a quick show of aggression. He's definitely top bird in that corner of the yard, and he wants that upstart bird behind the window to know it! Luckily, the window is so close to the railing that he never gets up enough speed to hurt himself.

Many backyard birders do not feed in the summertime. My friend Cristina in Montana, who has contributed stories to this site before, has to take all of her feeders down in the springtime and leave them down until wintertime because of the bears which wander through her yard. A 500-pound grizzly can destroy a feeder with one swipe of his paw. Furthermore, although Cristina has a great deal of respect and appreciation for the bears, she doesn't want to do anything which might attract them in closer to her house - - and her family. Others prefer not to feed birds because they want the birds to eat freely and heartily of the bugs that might be crawling or flying around. A flock of bushtits can do a great deal towards keeping aphids in check, and swallows can help keep the mosquito population down. In their view, full birdfeeders, especially suet feeders, might attract the birds away from their natural food sources.