Vociferous Baby Birds

This summer I have had numerous baby birds, Sparrows, Finches, Grackles, Starlings, Robins, and Flickers, all coming to my backyard to feed their new little fledglings. It's been such a joy to watch all the new babies getting fed. At first I thought the Grackles and Starlings had the loudest lot of babies, until the Flickers arrived with their new little ones. The Flicker babies make the most racket of them all. They are slightly smaller than the adults and have not guite got all their pretty markings and colors yet, but they sure can raise a ruckus. I can always tell when the Flicker babies are there. As of this posting, I am still getting Finch and Sparrow babies with their little pin feathers sticking up on their heads like little punk rock stars! They are so cute, mouths open wide and flapping their stubby little wings and making as much noise as possible so that the feeding parent will feed them first.



On another note, I finally am rid of most of the Grackles and Starlings. They were draining my hopper feeder on a dailey basis. This was getting rather expensive, so I switched to putting just safflower in the hopper and now all I have are just a few straglers here and there. The little song birds love the safflower and I'm not going broke feeding the birds.

Say's Phoebe

A Say's Phoebe stopped by to visit today. Last summer I had a family spend a day in the yard, sitting on the fence and waiting for their parents to bring them bugs. I think this one was a juvenile as well. The wings of adults are a solid color, instead of the rufous bars this one has. I've heard them around the neighborhood all summer and got some good pics today.

Golden Eagle Nest at Roxborough State Park

A few weeks ago my husband Kevin and I took my Vortex Sandpiper Spotting Scope and digital camera to Roxborough State Park to try digiscoping a Golden Eagle nest. We found the nest pretty easily because the nestling was making a loud screeching call over and over again. It was up in the rocks on the hogback, and much easier to see with binoculars or spotting scope than with the naked eye. The nestling was sitting on the edge of the nest and sat patiently for us to take pictures. Digiscoping involves shooting pictures through a spotting scope, which with my scope can magnify the picture up to 45 times more than the camera alone. Adapters are available depending on the camera and spotting scope, but Kevin and I have practiced just holding the camera up to the spotting scope and lining it up right to get a good picture. It definitely takes practice, and I need to learn how to get better focus and color. The hardest part was seeing the image in the LCD field because it was so sunny out!

Here's a picture taken with the zoom lens I have for my camera, you can see the magnification is nowhere near what we get with the spotting scope. Can you find the eagle and nest?


Seeing this Golden Eagle was a first for me! Golden Eagles always make me think of a time when a former co-worker referred to them as the "birds with hairy legs," because their legs are feathered to the toes.

Northern Cardinal on the Colorado Front Range

A rare site on the Front Range is a Northern Cardinal. On 3 of the past 4 days a single male Cardinal has visited our back yard in the Ken-Caryl neighborhood of Littleton, CO. We are just inside the “Hogback,” a ridge line just to the west of Denver. Our Red Bird was comfortable on and around our feeders with Black Headed Grosbeaks, Lesser Gold Finches, Spotted Towhees, and Black Headed Chickadees. This has been reported on the Colorado Field Ornithologist Rare Bird Alert hotline.

American Kestrel Watch in Littleton CO

July 2oth was the last day we observed a Kestrel on the nest or in the area. Our male Kestrel was on the eggs all day. It seems now though they have given up the ghost after over 109 days diligently incubating and turning unhitched eggs. It is incredible that they kept trying for almost 3 months longer than the normal 30 day gestation period. There are 2 eggs left in the box and we will remove them in due course.

This is a disappointing end to our Kestrel watch but we’ll have the cameras rolling again next year and hope our “more experienced” couple will return and try having a family again in 2009.

American Kestrel Watch in Littleton CO

We just got back in town from visiting relatives and are now back seeing how our Kestrel couple is doing. To our surprise the number of eggs is now back up to two! This is now after the nesting birds have been incubating them for 103 days now. Obviously the female has laid at least one egg in the past week or so. We do know if she broke the last egg before starting over but at any rate the gestation clock is reset in hopes of having at least one chick hatch before the end of summer. Assuming the last egg was laid in the past week we could see a chick around August 7th or so. We have noticed both Kestrels in the area and they are still both very involved in tending to their eggs.

American Kestrel Watch in Littleton CO

For the past two years we have enjoyed American Kestrels nesting in a nest box on our roof. Last year four chicks successfully fledged and gave us over 2 months of enjoyment as the parents labored through gestation, fed their fledglings, and taught them how the fine art of raptoring.

This year I placed an infrared camera in their nest box and wired it directly to our family room TV. We have watched with total amazement as a male and female Kestrel have taken up residence and fended off both Northern Flickers and European Starlings to lay undisputed claim to “their nest box.” So far however the would be parents seem to be unlucky in love as none of their eggs have hatched. The first egg was laid on April 2nd followed by number 2 on April 6th, number 3 on April 8th, and number 4 on April 10th. With normal gestation at approximately 30 days we feel there is no hope for a family on this outing. In fact three of the eggs have already disappeared – one on May 4th, another on May21st, and another on May 29th. As of July 1st the Kestrel couple is still trying to incubate their lone egg although we have observed much less participation by the male in the past couple of weeks.

Both female and male Kestrel has shared the egg warming and turning chores constantly. We are not sure what the cause of their failure is. Perhaps they are not experienced or perhaps they nested too early and the temperatures were too cold. The big news is how dedicated to the cause they are. As of this writing they have been on eggs for 89 days.
We will continue the watch and report our findings.