Yesterday evening my husband and I were sitting out on our porch, sipping wine and playing with our phones (as is our wont), when I looked up and saw a hummingbird just standing in the air over our heads. Then it moved on and went to visit our bottlebrush tree. Cool!
I guess they’ve always been around, but I’ve only begun to notice them as an adult. Before that, I probably just assumed they were big bugs.
Almost scary, that exact same thing (down to our wont) has happened with us, only it’s a butterfly bush, not a bottlebrush tree!
I really think we must be related somehow. 
I was sitting with my friend on her deck the other afternoon. She has a shallow dish type birdfeeder on her deck railing. While we talked, I watched chickadees flitting around it. All of a sudden a chickadee flew over and landed on my friend’s chair right next to her leg. It let out a raspy tweet and flew away. My friend said, “the birdfeeder must be empty”. She checked and sure enough, the little chickadee was letting her know he wanted her to refill the feeder!
Black capped chickadees are pretty tame naturally. If the feeder is empty and she moves her chair over to the feeder and holds seeds in her hand, you can get some cool pictures.
Yes, they are! My sister has many pictures of chickadees eating out of her hand. They’re one of my favorite birds.
I wonder what makes certain animals like chickadees and chipmunks tame like that?
Chickadees are cool. Last year, I ended up with one in my car. I had left the garage door open with the windows rolled down for several minutes. I was driving my son to soccer, when we heard a rustling coming from the cup holder in the back seat door well. Thinking I had a mouse in the car (It has happened before, and it sucks.), I pulled into the parking lot, opened the car door and looked in the cup holder. Looking up at me was a rather pissed off Black capped Chickadee. He hissed at me. It sounded like a snake. I opened the door wide, and about two minutes later he jumped up to the ledge to the cup holder, let out a surprisingly loud “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” and flew off into the woods.
Carolina Wrens and Downy Woodpeckers are the ‘tame’ ones around here. I’ve had wrens in my car, house, garage and shed. They’re just really curious and will fly in to see what’s in there. We have to remember to shut the doors so they don’t do that - I don’t want to accidently trap one inside.
The woodpeckers will keep eating at the suet feeder even when I am putting more food in the feeders nearby.
I’ve also had hummingbirds come check me out - we have a hummingbird feeder on the front porch and there’s some hanging baskets and an abelia bush right there too - if I’m out on the porch they’ll hover about eye-level with me from about four feet away and just take a good long look at the large featherless creature. I’ve wondered if it might have something to do with what I am wearing that day - they’re definitely attracted to red, and anything with a bright flower pattern.
On the way to Goblin Valley yesterday I saw some pronghorn antelope right alongside of the road. I stopped to take a picture but by the time I got my camera out they spooked and ran off. Pronghorns aren’t exactly rare in this part of the country and I’m pretty sure I’ll get a photo opportunity in the next couple of days.
This afternoon, I saw a very small river cooter crossing the bike trail. At first, I thought it was yet another dog turd. I got closer, and it was a little turtle no bigger than three inches long. He looked up to me as I rode by, as if to say, “I’m waakin’ here!”
If he had still been there when I came back through, I would have moved him across, so he didn’t encounter the High School cross-country team that was due later.
That was an adorable story! Thanks for sharing it. I got a smile picturing the bird, they’re so cute when they’re angry.
Attacked by arrny ants in bed last night, At firs thought fleas or something, Then extreme burning pain in right ribcage, didn’t seem internal. Wife found a column of ants leading to my t-shirt where I had spilled food. She had found an anthill in the garden yesterday. Very sapped of energy today.
Gah! That would have me freaking out.
Yesterday, we saw a herd of wild boar. We were walking just at dawn in a big county park that shares its borders with wild pastureland. A huge black boar (are these herds led by males or females?) cautiously crossed the road, and then was followed by a group of about a dozen members, including three boarlets. They looked like 100% European boar, and not mixed with feral pig.
We watched them canter across a large stretch of grassland, and then climb some foothills until they disappeared into a big copse of oak forest.
I was on one of my pleasure drives today, along the east coast of Florida (A1A)…
There is a small but growing subpopulation of Great Egrets here which have been hunting on dry land for Cuban brown anoles (an invasive species). I spotted 8 of them today, including a local individual I’ve seen close to 300 times now, often near my apartment (on an extended trip down to Ft. Pierce and back last spring I saw 30).
In addition to their hunting locales (typically near hedgerows & stands of pampas grass far from water, often in the middle of highway medians) they usually wiggle their head when about to strike-figured out that evolution gave them the ability to peer into water and calculate the refraction angle. On land/in the atmosphere no refraction so this may be a way to compensate.
In the middle of the drive I got another white bird which was rather unexpected. I had a small white shape zip past the front of my car, cigar shaped body and wings clearly visible. Undoubtedly had to be an albino passerine (my guess would be one of two of our native buntings).
How are you able to tell the individual egrets apart?
The local one has certain “tells” as well as places she tends to revisit regularly. And last month her head and neck got all muddy, so for like 2 weeks it was easy. Likewise I know the haunts of at least 3 other individuals who hunt in said fashion.
I’m working at home right now in our library, with the front yard bushes in front of me. We had a spider move into the bushes. My deal with nature is that if something is in the house I will kill it but if it’s the yard I won’t, so the spider is ok. It moves it’s web ever few days but it always looks like an interesting web design.
It’s the black and yellow argiope and we have some chats. So far we get along just fine.
On my ride yesterday, there was a doe with her three nearly grown fawns right on the path. They casually moved aside as I approached. Considering we were scarcely a hundred yards from a neighborhood, I’m guessing they’re quite used to humans. Hopefully that doesn’t bite them in the ass later on.
Walking our dog through our suburban neighborhood this morning, one fox chased another across the street just a couple of houses ahead. What beautiful animals.
Black Bear got in my car last night. No food or food wrappers in car. This happened to my Wife a few weeks ago. No damage. Just foot prints on seat and an open door. Door might have a scratch or two. These guys are real smart.
I’ve been warned not to lock the car, because they will rip the handle off (happened to a coworker). I’ve seen what they have done to my shed and tend to agree.