Are we into the second mating season of the year for birds and squirrels? I ask because:
the robins are singing much more the past week or two than they did for a while
today I watched a mating dance of two blue jays that ended with a kiss.
later today I saw an interaction between squirrels that might also have been a kiss. The significance of this meeting was the stark difference from their previous games of tag or outright animosity, like kids growing up to discover that the opposite sex was much more interesting than the sissies and brats they had always taken them to be.
This is on King East in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
An unusual friendliness between previously competitive young squirrels. This is the second act; I did not manage to photograph the first interaction on meeting, which appeared from a distance like either a sniffing of noses or a kiss.
The Gray Catbirds in my yard are singing like crazy, which to me always signals that they are between broods. When they are actively nesting, they are almost silent.
The robins here in my area (I’m in the midwestern US) are certainly breeding for a second time. A robin built a nest in a very conspicuous spot near the roof of my garage a few months ago so I got to keep an eye on her. She raised her babies there, all of them left and I didn’t see her for a while. Right now I have a second batch of baby robins in that same nest. I guess she was comfortable there and decided to come back! :)
A lot of birds will have multiple generations. I live fairly far north (Winnipeg) and it has been a cool spring/summer so far. A lot of birds arrived late, and over a longer time. I would assume that birds like American Robins are on their second generation by now, although I don’t have any confirmation of that. It does sound like the Song Sparrows are singing their mating calls again, but again, I don’t have confirmation of that.
