I was getting Emmeline out of her seat and noticed this little guy in the zinnias and cosmos outside the kitchen window. Excuse the piece of cardboard. It's supposed to be over by the watermelon plant not too far to the right. He is so tiny and he was sitting right on the zinnia leaf underneath before I ran to grab my camera. He is leaning over in the pictures and grabbing the seed head of a cosmos. If you look you'll see the seed head isn't there in the first picture because he had to lean over pretty far to grab it. I guess cosmos seeds are yummy? I wish these pictures were better! It's taken through a grimy window and screen though.
I love having a large bed of flowers right under the kitchen window. It really draws a lot of birds. Later in the season we have hummingbirds. I love how they will hover in front of the windows looking in. None of the other birds seem as interested in us. But the hummingbirds always seem curious. Our regulars are a couple of families of cardinals. Not long before I took these pictures Emmeline and I were enjoying one of the male cardinals sitting atop a tomato stake in the garden.
2 comments:
I've gotten into birds this year, too. I love to walk around the block each morning and see them. I try to imitate their calls but I am not a good whistler. I like to imagine that the birds get fed up and say to each other, "That woman is just talking gibberish!"
Birds are so delicate and wonderful, and have so much variety! I still don't see how they can generate such a high level of sound. Their lungs must be tiny. How can they be so loud?
We have a birdhouse opposite my study window and I watch the sparrows. They raised a family earlier and are empty-nesters now. Lately a wren has been coming when they're out--he goes in and starts clearing it out, throwing the nest material away, pushing it out the door, with great vigor. I have no idea why. Mr and Mrs Sparrow come back later and are mystified.
LOL That would be fun to watch. I'd like to try some bird feeders and bird houses. We tried a couple of bird feeders a few years back and never saw a single bird come to them. I have noticed that the more I have planted in the yard the more they are attracted to it. And then once we had different garden structures they all kind of came out to sit on them. Before that I guess they just stayed in the woods and watched from a distance.
I'd really love to be able to recognize their calls. I can tell a few now like our hawks and cardinals. But so much of what I hear seems so mysterious because I don't know who is making it. It's often hard to locate the talker. A couple of times recently we have been surprised by some rather odd sounds before we realized they were coming from out adolescent roosters.
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