REMEMBER--NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A RED-TAIL

Donegal Browne

Friday Miscellany-A Bit of Blue, Okra and Ants, Doorstep Mourning Dove and Friend, a Season's Fledglings, Berries, Japanese Beetles, and Blight

Though there was a frost warning last night, when I awoke the first Heavenly Blue Morning Glory had finally bloomed for the season. There is was nestled amongst the beetle decimated Virginia Creeper like a flash of blue hope in a season without.

When first I came, the High Bush Cranberry had only one living branch. It has now come round and sports hundreds of berries waiting for the fruit hungry migrating birds. Thankfully the Japanese Beetles don't seem to have a taste for its leaves.

Though ravaged by Japanese Beetles, (yes, I used pheromone traps and must have captured and drowned 10,000 of them by hand...), the Concord Grapevines managed a bumper crop

In many places here the apple crop failed due to the cold wet spring, then there was a blight on the tomatoes, the ants took to human kitchens in search of food. For whatever reason they seemed quite partial to over mature okra, so I left some on my back step, their usual egress to the kitchen being that door. No more ants in the kitchen, at least so far.

Their two latest chicks fledged and on their own, Doorstep Dove and Friend appear once again together on the feeding floor.

The fledgling female Cardinal makes a foray under the sunflower seed feeder, both parents present watching over her. For whatever reason the local Cardinal pair only seems to fledge one youngster per season. The previous two seasons chicks were males. This year they've raised a female.

The three pair of local Goldfinch have all graduated fledglings from their single clutch each of the year. They nest only when thistle down is available to line their nests.

After raising enumerable Cowbird chicks this season, Mr. Chipping Sparrow appeared today with a chick of his own in tow. It made my day.

Donegal Browne

Doorstep and Friend's Nest

Friend, (mate of Doorstep Dove), and the kids send a big hello.

I'd always wondered where Friend and Doorstep nested but as it wasn't in my yard and the direction appeared to be across the street and down a bit, in in area in which I don't know the neighbors , I didn't feel terribly comfy about rifling through their bushes.

As it turned out, Quicksilver the African Grey, being the conversation starter that he is, started a conversation with a gentleman on the sidewalk who just happened to have a pair of doves that had nested in his back yard for years. Hmmm. Part of the way that I know that a pair is Friend and Doorstep is not only their looks but also their behavior in my yard. (Lets face it Mourning Doves don't have a belly band like Red-tails to give you a leg up in the personal ID department) and I'd never seen their nest behavior. Soooo..... Lots of Mourning Doves in the area but still, worth a shot. When I saw Doorstep out in the feeding area at my place, I trotted over to the neighbors and lay in wait. Okay I didn't actually lay, I sat. The bird on the nest seemed somewhat human habituated. He did glare but he didn't try to stuff the kids under himself and I detected some neck iridescence so male and did have the look of Friend.

Then the female flew in and the male out. She bobbed her head, I bobbed mine and she settled in.

It was Doorstep.

Donegal Browne