Perfect timing this morning making coffee. There I stood at the counter, idly looking out the window at the lilacs and noticing it’s time to cut them back, when a rustling underneath caught my attention. Then a clumsy flutter from the left and a baby scrub jay landed on the stick.
In flew mama with a grasshopper! Screaming ensued. Two more babies emerged from under the lilacs. Within ten minutes they had all flown away… but what a fun ten minutes for me.
Morning coffee has gotten very exciting recently with all the bird action. A Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay flies from the Gamble Oak with an acorn as a hummingbird sits serenely in the next tree. The young oak is another beneficiary of the wet winter/spring, and consequently also the jays.
Lots of young hummingbirds zipping around the yarden now, sipping from the prairie salvia…
…the red salvia
…the purple whatever it is in this pot…
These hummingbirds are all juveniles and/or females so I can’t say which species any of them are. It’s hard to catch two in one frame when they chase each other away from nectar, but that’s my project for coffee time this week. I’m surprised I haven’t seen any males the past few days, but maybe this happens every year and I just noticed it this time. Maybe the males leave town early. I’m grateful for fun with birds on this first morning that feels like autumn.