FOAM LAKE BIRDING
No. 153
It has been
a while since the last article but various family events have kept me busy
elsewhere. Now, it is back to local
birds.
With the
plentiful moisture this spring and subsequent heat the vegetation is very lush
providing birds with ideal habitat to raise their young. At present we have House Sparrows, House
wrens, Purple Martins, Robins and Yellow Warblers nesting in our yard with
Brown Thrashers, Brewers Blackbirds, Chipping Sparrows, Grackles and Mourning
Doves just a "stone's throw" away.
Some species, such as Robins, House Sparrows and Flickers, have
fledglings already.
A pair of
flickers and their four youngsters have been in our yard for a number of days
now. With the recent hot weather they
have spent a lot of time at our bird bath drinking and bathing. It was fun watching the young ones copying
their parents' behavior. It reminded me
of little children hesitatingly entering a swimming pool for the first
time. After the bird bath they flew to the ground looking
for their favourite food, ants. What a
nice way to get rid of troublesome pests.
As I mentioned in a previous article, "I do like
Flickers".
This week I
am featuring a bird, the Yellow Warbler, that I had covered before in Article
No. 89. As I had mentioned in that
article the Yellow Warbler is the only warbler that can be commonly found in
urban yards. We have had their nests in
our yard in the past and we have one again this year. This year's nest is very close to our house
only about a foot away from our dining room window. Whenever we sit down for meals we can and do
watch the parents busily feeding the young. It certainly provides us with quite
a bit of entertainment.
Because of
its vibrant yellow colour and cheerful song the Yellow Warbler has always been
my summertime "happy bird" as it were. Even in inclement weather its presence raises
one's spirits. So it is with this week's
picture of a male drying himself off after one of our recent intermittent rain
showers.