On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
It’s Albatrossity Monday!
We have a great OTR week ahead, which will hopefully provide a good “breakfast” every day as we face another news week that is, shall we say, not of our choosing!
Albatrossity
When last we peeked in at the birds of Flyover Country (before the excursion to Costa Rica), it was mid-May, and the number of northbound migrants was starting to dwindle. So this week’s batch has some transients, but mostly it has birds who will spend the summer here. Think of this as a respite thread, and take deep cleansing breaths before you start the week!
Our most common northbound migrant that comes through in the first half of May, this female Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) posed for me in a honey locust tree, whose heady-scented flowers are another thing I look forward to every spring. Click here for larger image.
American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla) often forage by fluttering and/or spreading their tails, presumably to startle insects, which they then gobble up. This is a species that is a migrant in my patch of Flyover Country, but there are nesting records in many Kansas counties along the Missouri border, as well as along the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska. Someday I hope to find these guys here in the summertime! Click here for larger image.
As the season advances, sometime a migrant bird will be practicing his vocals, so that he is ready to defend a territory and find a mate as soon as he gets to his final destination. This Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus) was singing away when I photographed him. It may not sound so sweet to you and me, but he hopes it sounds like Pavarotti to females up north. Click here for larger image.
Orioles are one of the most eagerly-anticipated arrivals in May here, and lots of people put out oranges or jelly feeders to attract them to the backyard. The flashier males get most of the love, but this female Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) is quite a good-looking bird as well. Click here for larger image.
Second-year male Baltimore Orioles are a variable lot. Many of them are not as orange as a male in his later years, and some of them can be pretty tricky to ID, especially if you only get a fleeting glance. This one quite resembles a Scott’s Oriole (Icterus parisorum), a species of the American Southwest that occasionally strays to Flyover Country. Click here for larger image.
A bird that is unlikely to be confused with another species is this after-second-year male Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius). Black-headed and brick-colored, with a sharp blue-gray bill, his cheerful song enlivens woodlots and shrubby thickets all summer long. Click here for larger image.
Another eagerly anticipated May arrival, with entire websites devoted to tracking their northward movements, is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris). For most of the US, this is THE hummingbird, as it is the only regularly expected summer hummingbird east of Colorado. In our backyard we have only one pair of these jewels (this is the male returnee), but their return for the summer is always a welcome event. Click here for larger image.
Our backyard also hosts a pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus), year-round, but these guys always look especially bright in the spring sunshine. Their constant vocalizations echo through the woods each morning, and their appetite for suet is unmatched. Click here for larger image.
Not a backyard bird, but certainly common in pasture thickets everywhere in Flyover Country, the Bell’s Vireo (Vireo belli) sings its twitchy song all day (and all summer) long. These irrepressible and pugnacious summer residents spend the winter in Central America, but return to the central and western US for the summer, and I’m always glad to welcome them back. Click here for larger image.
The final bird this week is one that lots of birders across the country really want to seem even though this particular specimen (a second-year male) is not as flashy as some of the other representatives of the species. My corner of Flyover Country is about the northern tip of the range for Painted Buntings (Passerina ciris), but the good news for more northerly birders is that they seem to be expanding their range in that direction. Even if this one is not as flashy as the older males, he was singing loudly and hopeful that he could attract a mate this summer. Click here for larger image.
OzarkHillbilly
I had the pleasure of a rare warbler visit this week. Never got a good look at the whole bird thru the leaves of my mimosa, but managed to get brief looks at most parts of the bird as it fluttered from branch to branch. Pretty sure it was a female yellow warbler.
JPL
My yard is filled with chipping sparrows and cardinals. For xmas, I received a Bird buddy which is fun to watch but also filled with sadness. While viewing, I saw a hawk swoop down and grab a sparrow. I know that even hawks need to eat, but geez NIMB.
Any ideas on how to keep squirrels from eating all the seed?
MagdaInBlack
I have a hummingbird who regularly comes to check out the giant geranium on the balcony, attracted to the dozen big red blossoms, no doubt. It will hover inches from my face as if doing a full facial scan, then flit off. It’s very cool ❤️
Also too, we seem to have had a wee earthquake in northern Illinois, 3.4 near Somonauk IL.
Another Scott
@JPL:
I use Cole’s flaming hot sauce. Mammals don’t like the hot peppers, birds don’t care or even like it.
I use it on shelled sunflower seeds (I got tired of the mess from the hulls, and don’t have to fill the feeders quite so often).
HTH!
Thanks, Albatrossity – beautiful respite as always.
Cheers,
Scott.
SteveinPHX
Thank you for the treat as always!
Geo Wilcox
@JPL: Baffles on the feeder poles work for us, I also grease the poles so sliding squirrels are a treat. Vaseline doesn’t hurt them and it stays for a long time. Also move the feeders away from anything the squirrels can climb up and jump off of.
eclare
What a great photo of the American Redstart! It’s going to be hot today, time to refill the birdbath.
JPL
Thanks all
HinTN
I remember mama taking about having Baltimore Orioles pass through when I was growing up (eons ago, that was) but we don’t have any sighting of them around here these days. Beautiful birds. Thanks, as always, Albatrossity.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: This: @Geo Wilcox:
@Another Scott: Doesn’t work on Mexican squirrels. Seriously, I had an illegal immigrant squirrel here eating all my cayenne peppered sunflower seeds day after day after day. No honest, god fearing, all American squirrel would have the ability to stand up to it!
I hope that squirrel didn’t get to pass on his genes.
OzarkHillbilly
Speaking of squirrels…
martha
Love these photos, as usual! You are so good at capturing their personalities, that split millisecond that most mere mortal photographers (like me) can never achieve. What a wonderful way to start the week.
mvr
I really like all of these. They are sort of calming.
Our Red Bellied Woodpeckers seem to have a couple of kids who are now flying to the feeders both with and without parents. It was fun watching them peck it out with a couple of starlings. Sometimes they won. When they didn’t a parent would swoop in and make sure the starling left.
We’ve had good luck with some squirrel buster feeders. Basically they close up when anything too heavy gets on them. And for the non-squirrel proof feeders that hang from some of our eves a top baffle seems to work pretty well. The squirrels fall off and it can be very funny when they do.
But yesterday something managed to knock an entire squirrel buster feeder off its mounting hook. I think it was a squirrel since I had seem one trying very hard to get to it by hanging on the gutter with its rear feet. When I saw it it fell off. But yesterday morning the whole feeder was on the ground and empty.
So I have now connected a fence charger with one pole on the feeder and the other on the gutter. These don’t harm animals but they are unpleasant to connect with. It won’t bother the birds since they only touch the feeder (same basic reason they can sit on electric fences), but the squirrel will find touching the feeder unpleasant as it hangs from the gutter. I expect it to stop using that technique after a few tries and that I will be able to take the charger down in a few days. We’ve had that feeder for 4 years with squirrels mostly using the less ambitious but equally effective feeding strategy of eating what the birds drop. Every year a couple get so fat that the neighborhood fox catches them as the sometimes bounce off trees they try to jump to. I find it surprising that I am always a bit sad when that happens given how often I curse the squirrels for the trouble they cause, but in fact I do.
StringOnAStick
The lesser flycatcher looks so confident, he’s knows he’s a babe magnet.
Citizen_X
Thanks for, as always, putting up links to their calls, Albatrossity. I appreciate hearing them.