time for nesting!

The duck fights, for the most part had subsided by the end of last week. An occasional chase but no more of the ferocious attacks.  Some of the ducks had departed and what has been left this past week are 4 pair and one single duck.  The single male mallard is the one with the most fight scars, you can see some of them as the white areas, where feathers have been pulled out by his attackers, on his brown 'bib'.  he also has a bit of a dent in the back of his head. I assume that is also just missing feathers.

He does follow the other couples around. Every hopeful I guess. But when the other males get tired of it and turn towards him, he no longer takes a fight stance, instead he swims quickly away.

The paired ducks look so sweet together don't they?  The males are very attentive.  When they come to the yard for feed, the males often stand guard, letting the female eat first.

Here is Blue Eyes with his mate.

While her mate was busy grooming, this female wandered off.

 Here's her mate, hurrying to catch up to her.

Two days ago I looked out and there was one of the males all by himself. So I quickly looked around to see if I could see where his female mate had gotten. I almost didn't see her. She was up on the bank across the stream. It was a struggle for her to get down and slid in the dirt.  She may have been looking for a nesting site.

This morning I came home and noticed right away a collection of male mallards at the corner of the stream.  So nesting time is upon us. The girls are gone and the males are left to their own devices. From past years I know the routine...the males will be bored. They will sleep a lot on the banks. This is also  their time to molt, shedding some of their more brilliant mating plumage, as the females will also molt while they are away.

 More males will join the other males here.  Any single female that shows up will be subjected to non-consensual mating. It can get really ugly. We are talking duck rape here. Not just my term, that's the way it is described on several websites.  But if you have ever witnessed it, you would have to agree.  Males may also try mating with other males. 

 It's a wild world out there!

The mallards aren't the only ones in season.  it's become more noticeable with turning our clocks back, daylight lasting later the birds are more active now not just in the mornings, but in the early evenings too.  I had to go out and find the bird that was singing. I'm not too familiar with bird calls or songs. But the song was pretty and I needed to know what bird sang it. 

Here is the female cardinal I found singing her pretty song. I read that the black mask is one indicator mates look at before choosing. Apparently it gives sign of their condition. Females with a large face mask are thought to be good nest defenders, but in a male a big face mask means they aren't as successful in reproduction.  So size matters. To them.

It was interesting to watch this male come closer as the female sang. Notice they are looking away from each other. Ah the ritual of non-chalance. Apparently don't want to show too much interest too fast.  Does this sound familiar? :D 

Another male cardinal flew into a nearby tree. Shortly another female followed.  But when the singing cardinal flew off, both cardinals gave chase. I felt bad for the left out female!

 another cardinal photo, with his feathers fluffed up from the wind.

The mourning doves are a hoot to watch.  The males are persistent to the point of being obnoxious. I think mother nature made the male so much bulkier to give the female a chance to flee unwanted attention. LOL

Run girl run!

A song sparrow on the rocks.

There's a wren in my bowl! Gathering up a striped sunflower seed

Every morning I've seen or heard large flocks of geese making their way north.

One of the daily small planes that fly over.  I've been hearing the airport setting off whistling fire crackers on a regular basis lately. They set them off when there is a plane coming in. The geese like to congregate on their large expanse of grass.  The only problem is it scares off the birds in my yard too. 

The squirrel was raiding the peanut butter feeder and inadvertently knocked down a sunflower feeder.  Lucky squirrel! He started chewing apart the small openings, but then found if he simply rolled the feeder around he was rewarded with seed.

A robin,  singing.

The dark eyed junco is still here. Though today the number seems smaller. The weather is to warm up significantly on Friday, so I don't expect to see them much longer.  When they leave and the catbirds show up, I'll be confident that Spring is really here.

Yesterday while I was out looking to see what birds were singing, I heard a woodpecker drumming. It was loud.  It took me awhile to find her. I'm pretty sure she kept changing spots because I found on right on the tree out front, almost above where I was standing!  I went in to get my camera, but she was gone till I got back. But what I found surprised me.

This isn't visible from the house side of the tree. I'm not sure what to make of it. I've looked it up online and there could be several causes for the bark to be like this. And it's not from the woodpecker. At least not alone. The squirrels may possibly be responsible.  While some trees do lose their bark at times naturally, that's usually on the trunk.

I looked around and noticed a lot of things going on with the trees. 

A tree on the bank I knew was favored by the woodpeckers. But I was really surprised to find the bark falling off the tree. I examined a piece of bark trying to discern whether this is only woodpecker problems or a problem of the bugs they are getting out of the tree.  Like what came first the chicken or the egg!? Though for this particular tree it's not important. It's a scrub tree and out of the way. Happy pecking woodpeckers, you get those bugs!

This is the mulberry tree. The damage to the branches on this is definately from the birds and squirrels. You can see the girdling affect, where there is bark missing the whole way around the branch.

The real irony is that I just read a blog of another woman who has a tree issue and had a recommendation to cut it down.

Look what I found!  This is Autumn Joy Sedum that I had split apart and transplanted last fall. So far it's the only one I notice coming up, but it's early yet, right?

next post, Bob has a visitor.