Saturday, April 11, 2015

April 5

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One of the things I do is spot anomalies. 

I see this neighbor, all the time, walking his dog.  I'd never seen him with a camera. Until April 5, when he had a big fat camera in his hand, and no dog. 

What had caught his eye?  I got up to have a look.

Ah.

I don't remember seeing this car before.  The guy two houses south of us likes cars.  He's got at least one other car that he doesn't drive very often (or maybe this one has replaced the other one?).  Apparently this neighbor is a car aficionado, too.  He walked all around the car, taking pics from near and far, from many angles.  I bet he'd like a ride......



Cars are not especially interesting to me.

Birds, on the other hand....  More interesting.

Do you remember Clarissa and Bo?  They worked VERY hard at trying to build a nest over our patio, back in 2012.   They were never successful at their nest-building, in part because they could not agree about ... well, about pretty much anything.  Which sticks were good for nests.  Where to put the sticks.  Where to put the nest, for that matter. 

They were much better a tug-of-war than they were at nest-building........



I think this robin nest, also over our patio, was built in 2011.  If I recall correctly, babies were successfully raised here in 2011, 2012, and 2013.  Here's a post about Bo and Clarissa and the robins, from 2012.

Last year a crow found the robin nest.  I saw it watching the robin sitting on the eggs, and I went outside in hopes of shooing the crow away.  It left, but only went several yards.  I stayed outside until the crow was out of sight, but I was sure it would be back.

Someone ate the robin eggs later that day.  We saw shells on the ground.

The robins abandoned the nest.  I hope they were successful at raising their babies elsewhere.



This year, we noticed some mourning doves checking out the robin nest.  As my better half put it:  "Hey, look!  A fixer-upper!"

Their idea of improvement was rather strange.  One bird would be sitting on the nest, and the other would bring a small and shriveled piece of grass.  The bird delivering the grass would stand right on the other bird, and tuck the grass inside the edge of the nest.  We saw this happen over and over.  Standing right on the partner to add a (probably utterly unnecessary) piece of grass.

For the purpose of ending up with a useable nest, it doesn't matter.  Robin nests are very securely built.

Whether robin nests are big enough to house growing mourning doves is another issue.  Mourning doves are noticeably bigger than robins.........

I guess we'll find out.

Mourning doves -- or, at least, this couple of mourning doves -- are much less goosey about having people around than are robins.  We never got within 10 feet of the robins without them flying away. 

This mourning dove let me get up on the ladder about 3' from her(?) before flying off.  (Hence the very clear pic of the dove, in contrast to the much blurrier pic of the robin, which was taken from inside the house!)

You can see the frame around the doorway into the garage at lower left, above.  This bird does not fly when we go into the garage, but does when we come out (unless we close the door quietly).  The robins never stayed on the nest long enough for us to get close to the door.



Mourning doves are not showy birds.  They are mostly soft grayish tan, with a few white and black accents (and very pale blue eyeliner).

Their eggs are not fancy, either.  No gorgeous robin's-egg blue for them.

I've never thought mourning doves are the brightest lights in the sky.  Once I found a mourning dove egg in the rain gutter around our family-room roof....  At least -- I thought it was a mourning dove egg, and now, seeing these, I'm pretty sure it was.

The fact that the doves let us get so close to them as they sit on the nest is perhaps another indication that they perhaps are not quite as on top of things as robins are...........

I wish them luck.  I am surprised that the crow that found the robin eggs last year hasn't been back.....



Later.  Walking.  Crocus.



Another look at the winter aconite.




You don't see very many selfies on this blog.  This egg reminds me of Chicago's Cloud Gate, which is a totally excellent piece of public art.



Here we are getting the same sort of interesting distorted reflections one sees in the Cloud Gate.  I like it.



The next two pics are pretty similar.  This image shows the overall sky better.



This one shows the clouds better.


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2 comments:

thecrazysheeplady said...

We have something, probably a sparrow, building a nest on our back porch over one of the light fixtures...right above the cat condo...

I need orange said...

I think the "bird-brain!" description is often accurate.....

:-)

On the other hand, I always wondered why squirrels came in our yard, given the dogs and all. Then I thought about it a bit more, and realized that all the yards that touch ours, but one, also had dogs.... Three out of four....

So maybe the wild creatures work from the assumption that there is no safety, not anywhere, and don't pay attention to the location of stationary predators like pet dogs and cats?