Scrub Jay

I spent too much time stalking the raven today. I got one shot of him with his back turned to me…not a good shot, but enough to confirm that he IS a raven and not a crow. He has a way of rising out of the bushes, wings raised like Dracula's cape. He isn't nearly as clever as this scrub jay who took only a day or two to figure out that he could perch on top of the suet holder and stretch down for his food. Perhaps the raven is just too big to perch. He has a habit of stalking loftily around the patio, until he catches sight of me and flies off into the trees.

At least three different kinds of hummingbirds zoom around the garden, hovering around the feeder and occasionally landing briefly. Yesterday, one came right up to the window, hovering in turn at each of the ten stickers we put on to keep the birds from flying into the glass. The stickers look slightly opaque to us, but to a bird, we're told, they look bright purple. To this young hummer, they apparently looked like food. At least he didn't hurl himself into this own reflection but sipped daintily at each sticker before giving up and flying off….

The orioles love the hummingbird feeder, but apparently their beaks won't fit into the little holes so they too employ stretching to reach from the perch down to the bottom to extract the liquid from the outer rim of the tray.

We had to modify the seed feeder by taking the tray off the bottom because the collared doves were squatting it it and eating the small birds out of house and home. Collared doves are too big to fit on the perches and have finally gone off to seek their fortunes elsewhere. I don't think doves are the brightest of birds….