It doesn’t seem to have affected the crow population near the Minnesota River Valley, but I have noticed that about the North American Robin. House finches are giving the local goldfinches a run for their money though as the house finch arrives sooner and leaves a touch later on the annual cycle. They used to just be moving through Apple Valley to head further north but now they stick around and compete with the goldfinches.
I’m a little north of there. For a few years, House Finches outnumbered House Sparrows here, which was a good trend. Unfortunately that didn’t last long. Goldfinches I either have dozens or I have two. No rhyme or reason to it that I can see.
1a.) I was so caught up in how West Nile affected me personally, I didn’t realize the havoc it brought down on local wildlife.
Thank you - sincerely - for the perspective.
2b.) Smart as they are, I did not know that blue jays are corvids. I lumped crows/ravens/magpies together, and that’s it.
I learned Things this morning, thx Broomstick.
I didn’t know that blue jays were corvids either. I guess because blue jays and crows look so different in terms of coloration, I just assumed that they were not closely related. There’s a lesson there, I’m sure.
Late yesterday afternoon I was relaxing on the sofa, reading a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, when I became aware of an unsettling noise, which resolved into an increasing cacophony of twittering and squawking.
I looked out the nearest window and saw numerous birds flying by, some only about 10 feet off the ground.
When I went outside to check it out, I was astounded by the presence of large flocks of birds*, easily in the thousands, which had settled in trees, flying in great masses to and fro and incessantly chirping and brawking (and probably pooping, but at least not on me). It reminded me of that late unpleasantness in Bodega Bay, not to mention the intro to a classic song.
The bird invasion lasted for a couple of hours. When I went out in the back driveway they were still clustered heavily in surrounding trees, until I clapped my hands and they flew off…temporarily.
I suspect this phenomenon may have been related to an impending change in the weather. When it occurred it was unseasonably warm (near 70F) in advance of a cold front that dropped temps into the low 40s by this morning.
*not sure of the bird species. They were small to medium-sized and dark-colored with paler heads, which could describe anything from renegade sparrows to dwarf vultures. I’m glad they’re gone.
Somewhere in the neighborhood there is a tree or shrub that produces gobs of sticky purple berries. Each berry has one big pit.
At this time of year, birds go and pick these berries, then fly to the sycamore in front of our house to eat them. They mumble them around in their beaks, and then spit out the messy pit onto our driveway and, if we forgot and parked cars in the driveway, onto our car roofs.
It makes a horrible mess. The berry juice is dark purple, almost black, and the driveway is covered with them. The drought makes it problematic to go out there with a hose and hose them off, but I think we’re going to have to break a law.
And the birds? I think they’re robins, flocking together now that it’s almost wintertime.
Could be waxwings. They like to flock with at least a few hundred of their very closest friends.
Mulberry, I can almost guarantee.
Mulberries don’t have pits. I would guess a wild plum or cherry species.
Nature is in my house this morning I hear the heavy footsteps of a mouse in the bathroom ceiling. Yea heavy nothing light and delicate it’s a thumping scratchy alarming sound that we hear every fall. 3 cats inside are slacking off!
Nature’s in my house too. I caught two tree frogs in the bathroom this morning, but couldn’t get the lizard lurking in the bathtub drain. Husband brought his plants in from the yard and they’re full of critters.
On my morning run yesterday an 8 point buck ran 50 feet in front of me across the trail.
We had a tree frog in the house this summer. We we’re hearing this very loud screeching sound and I volunteered it must be an Eagle in our Pine tree and ran to the window to look up when I nearly stepped on the grouchy little frog as it screeched roared again. Imagine I mistook a tree frog for an eagle! Lord that was a 
(hoot)
Our hackberry tree is dropping its leaves this sunny chilly morning. Raining gold in the back corner of the yard.
Yesterday as I drove down the penultimate road to our house, a coyote crossed in front of me.
…a tree completely covered in mistletoe:
Actually, there were several trees which had similar burdens of mistletoe - click on the image to see a second such tree in the background and to the right.
We walk this route fairly often, and so yeah, we knew there were trees with mistletoe alongside the path - but since the leaves have fallen, suddenly the sheer amount of mistletoe is very obvious.
j
That’s a lot of mistletoe. Where I live, we get clumps in trees, but they are bird nests, not mistletoe. It kindly makes me want to be in England right now.
I’ve been seeing a lot of mistletoe since moving to Kentucky. There’s some in our yard.
Around here it’s harvested the old-fashioned way.
Minnesota only has one kind of mistletoe, called dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium pusillum) we are too cold for the others. But that might change given our warming environment.
Among the usual jays, crows and squirrels that visit the peanut feeder, today there were a couple of spotted towhees.
Driving across mid Sussex today on a fairly quiet road, a red kite flew straight towards us at a height of maybe ten meters, from maybe twenty meters ahead of us. As we were busy forming the word “Wow!”, a buzzard carrying the corpse of a pheasant flew from right to left at eye level no more that three or four meters in front of the car. Even before I had time to think about hitting the brakes, it released the corpse (which smacked down onto the roadside verge) and, relieved of the weight, the buzzard flipped upwards out of harm’s way. I have no idea where the kite went while that happened - all of that took place over maybe two or three seconds.
Round those parts pheasants are bred for shooting - they are raised and released, but carry on being fed thereafter (grain from feeders). Otherwise left to themselves (til someone shoots them) they occupy their time by being the most spectacularly stupid of birds - with a fondness for crossing roads on foot in front of oncoming traffic. There’s plenty of roadkill to go around - I guess that’s what the kite was looking for and the buzzard was making off with. That corpse was the largest thing I’ve ever seen a buzzard carrying - no wonder it was struggling to make altitude. I assume it picked up its prize (from the relative safety of the verse) in due course.
Aside - there are a lot of pheasants in Wakehurst place at the minute. There’s no shooting on the grounds - maybe they’re not quite as dumb as I thought. Here’s an immature male from a few days ago.
j
I’m working on my parent’s porch in in FL and spent a good part of yesterday afternoon watching an Osprey catching fish out of the lake. Pretty amazing to see after so many years of Osprey being rare.