A busy week of birding
Peak migration week has begun in Minnesota. As I am writing this post on Sunday night, eighteen million birds are estimated to be in the night sky of Minnesota right now on their way north. Tonight in addition to the normal hazards of nocturnal migration flight, these songbirds will have to travel through a sky of wildfire smoke blown in from Canada.
At the feeders, male hummingbirds have arrived. Females will show up a bit later.
So far I have only had one Indigo Bunting show up but I anticipate more to follow. We usually have a nesting pair in our backyard each summer.
Speaking of nesting, the male house wren that arrived over a week ago has been busy singing and filling a nest box with sticks to attract a mate. Today he began ecstatically singing when a female showed up and checked out the box that contained his nest-building skills.
Our local chickadees continue to gather pet fur for their nests.
Spring time just seems to go by so fast with all the new happenings. Our robin’s nest now has two large chicks that are not too far from fledging. Both parents are busy bringing in food.
Not only do they bring in new food but they also take away the chick’s white fecal sac in order to keep the nest clean.
The parents have also been busy defending their nest from predators. I believe the resident pair of barred owls have been eyeing the robin’s activity as I have seen the one of the owls in the daytime hanging around the house. Barred owls often eat birds or feed them to their young. The robins were aggressively dive-bombing this owl to try and drive it away.
