As some of you (“you” referring to the one person out there reading this blog) may know, one of our female budgies recently laid some eggs. At first, we were excited about the prospect of baby budgies. The first egg cracked, probably from being used for budgie soccer. A second egg was laid, then a third. We figured we had a good chance at getting a cute little baby budgie out of this.

We have since given up on the whole thought. In fact, we’re considering contacting Budgie Protective Services to report a neglectful budgie mom. LOL. The second egg has cracked and the third is currently being completely ignored for most of the day. Oh, mama tries. She does. She spends a few minutes a day trying to sit on the egg and/or figure out what to do with it. She even runs off any of the other budgies who try to get near it. But, I’m getting the feeling that she’s just not cut out to be a budgie mom. At least, not yet.

Still, all in all, it’s been fun watching the birds and seeing how they react, whether or not we get a baby budgie out of it.

A brown-headed cowbird and his mate stopped by the feeders today. This is the first we’ve seen in our yard. We had a plethora of black-headed grosbeaks and their young at the feeders today too.

Who needs a gutter cleaning service when you have Steller’s Jays!? I heard an usual noise against the house today, so I looked out the 2nd story bedroom window to investigate. To my surprise, there was a Steller’s Jay, pulling moss and leaves out of the rain gutter and tossing it over the side to the ground. Perhaps he just decided to pay us back for putting out all those yummy peanuts!

Wow! It was busy at the feeders today. In about 10 minutes, I saw several different species. A Northern Flicker came by for some suet, accompanied by several Chestnut-backed Chickadee after seed and peanuts. A Spotted Towhee stopped by for some seed, as did two Black-headed Grosbeaks and several Goldfinches. A Steller’s Jay made off with two unshelled peanuts and there was a rare appearance by a male Evening Grosbeak. To round it out, some juvenile (or possibly female) Red-winged Blackbirds stopped by.

Since childhood, I have been fascinated by birds. The different varieties of shapes, color, sizes, sounds, and behaviors never ceased to amaze me. The thrill of seeing a new species for the first time is something that never gets old in my book.

Fortunately, among our other shared interests, my husband is an avid birdwatcher as well. Our backyard is full of feeders and has a bird house and bird bath to attract some feathered friends. He experiments with different seed combinations and suet types to try to attract specific species of birds. We’ve been very lucky to see quite a variety of birds, from bush tits and chickadees to pileated woodpeckers and crows.

Occasionally, we’ll take a walk on a local trail and bring the camera along for our birdwatching excursion. I will be sharing some photos from those excursions on the photos page as soon as I can get them all together. We hope to someday have a bird cam in our backyard, but that’ll have to wait. In the meantime, I’ll soon be posting some links to some great bird webcams online.

I might be able to convince my husband to share some of his birdfeeding tips. He has closets full of different types of feeders and changes them out throughout the course of the year depending on what types of birds he wants to attract. The majority of his birdfeeding equipment is from Duncraft and he highly recommends them. In fact, he recently told me that they shipped out an extra part he requested for one of his feeders free of charge. We’ve always had good service and quality products from them.

Save up to 40-70% at Duncraft!