First of spring or last of winter?

It's been cold here. Not nearly as bitter as the weather in the northeast, but we've had lows in the teens and high in the low 30s for the last couple of days. The ground is frozen hard, but we have no snow. (It's typical around here not to get snow until January.)

Yesterday afternoon, I finished cleaning the barn and was coming back into the house when I heard an unexpected sound: A robin's call. I looked up and saw the culprit in one of our yard trees under a gibbous moon.

Robins in winter are rare, but not unheard of. It was puffed up against the cold, and its red breast caught the glow of the afternoon sun.

Was this the last robin of winter or the first robin of spring?

No idea. Maybe this bird knows something we don't.

The late bird gets the worm

During the early evening "golden hour" a few days ago, I turned a corner in the yard and surprised a robin in the process of extracting an especially large and juicy worm from the ground. Despite how close I was standing, the robin refused to release the worm. Juuuust as I got the camera out of my pocket and focused, the robin was able to yank the worm free and fly off to the yard fence.

It perched on the fence for a few moments while doing something rather interesting: Instead of flying off with the long worm dangling from its beak, the robin actually looped the worm into a circle for more convenient transportation.

Once this task was accomplished...

...the bird gave me a saucy look and departed to bring the feast to its nestlings.

I'm not sure how the worm felt about it.

Bit and bobs

Here are a few random bits and bobs from the last few weeks.

We have a shed in our yard we use for garden tools, etc. The doors were open on it for about a week or so. One day Don saw a robin fly in with food in its beak, and we thought, "Uh oh, robin built a nest inside." If that was the case, we'd have to keep the shed doors open until the babies fledged.

Later that same day I went to put something inside the shed and saw this:

Not a nest, but a fledgling that had made its way in.

Of course we left the shed doors open. By the next day, it was gone.

Ground squirrel.

Full moon behind a pine.

There is a single volunteer sunflower plant growing in one of the potato beds.

It's always worth examining things like this up close...

...because you never know what you might see.

And another small spider, this one on our screen door. I believe it's a young orb weaver.

I have some basil plants growing on the deck. I was going to transplant them into the garden beds, but never got around to it, so I repotted them in larger pots and they're happily growing.

However something was eating the leaves.

Aha! Found the culprit. Look how closely it blends in, color-wise. I scooped it up and dumped it over the side of the balcony.

Grasses, blooming.

Allergies, anyone?

A clump of irises growing by the side of the driveway. This photo was taken about a month ago.

In late June, I baffled to see what looked like carrots growing in the rocks next to one of the garden beds. Carrots? How?

The mystery was solved a few weeks later. Not carrots, but Queen Anne's lace, a member of the carrot family.

I know Queen Anne's lace is technically an invasive weed, but I absolutely stinkin' love it.

A very, very distant doe and her fawn.

Some quail parents herding their chicks toward the safety of some brush.

Sunrise..

...and sunset.

Baby robins

Robins have always been one of my favorite birds.

There's just something about their cheery appearance and perky personality that I like.

So when a pair of robins decided to build a nest in the rafters of our barn, who was I to object?

The barn door is almost always open, so there's no issue with the parent birds coming and going.

In many ways, this is an ideal spot for the robins to nest. There's far less chance the nest will be raided by magpies, one of the top predators of baby robins in this area. Plus, there's utter protection from rain and snow. What's not to love?

I climbed into the barn loft to get a better view of the babies, which also meant I had a fine view of one of the parent birds coming in with a beakful of food. What's on the menu?

Whatever it was, the babies gobbled it down.

Within a few days, or at most a week or two, we're going to have fledglings everywhere. Spring!

Baby birds everywhere

Naturally this is the season for baby birds. And let me tell you, they're everywhere.

Let's start a few days ago when I noticed a Western Kingbird fledgling on a pile of rocks, waiting for its parents to feed it.

These are surprisingly hard birds to photograph, so I was pleased to get these shots.

Here's an adult.

Next up, a juvenile black-capped chickadee that got under our porch roof and couldn't quite find its way out for a bit. Its wings weren't the strongest, so it blundered around for a few minutes.

Here's a darling little fledgling robin (I'm a sucker for robins) that hung around inside the strawberry enclosure. Made me want to pinch his little cheek. The parents were clucking around me in alarm, so of course I didn't get any closer.

And then there are the magpies. I can't pretend to enjoy these fledglings as much. They're noisy and raucous and demanding, and they're everywhere. You can distinguish juvies from adults by the length of their tail feathers.

(Bonus photo: Here's Frumpkin watching the magpies on the roof.)

And finally, the pièce de résistance, some killdeer. Here's the parent:

S/he was shepherding around four offspring, which were moving around fairly fast. I was lucky to get all four in one photo.

Even though we have killdeer everywhere, it's rare to glimpse the babies.

That's our inventory of baby birds so far.