One of my favorites this time of year is the Carpenter Bee action. Big male bees hovering and then chasing anything that moves. Give you a little rush when they zip by you tumbling through the air in hot pursuit.
When I was running in my neighborhood this morning I saw a pair of Mississippi kites mating in a tree just a few yards ahead of me. I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed actual mating of birds. Of course I couldn’t get a picture because I was literally running (although I did stop as soon as I saw them and watched for the few seconds it took.) I felt very fortunate to catch this behavior. I am hoping to figure out where they are nesting since I saw them just a few blocks from my house. Interestingly, on the Cornell range map we are not in their breeding range, but I know Mississippi kites were here last summer and possibly the summer before that. Is their range extending?
It was probably shedding and didn’t mind the bird removing the itchy underfur.
I saw two carpenter bees flying about a hand’s width apart all over my yard yesterday. I think they were courting rather than being aggressive.
I have put up pine boards and some hardwood logs for them to nest in and I hope they move in.
I find it irritating that Merlin can’t tell the difference between a real red-tailed hawk and a blue jay imitating one; both birds are common in my area and some of the sneakier blue jays drive other birds away from my feeders by imitating the hawks, but they do it poorly enough that I can hear the difference even when I don’t see them. I think that Merlin has gotten worse in the past year (a whole other conversation). It also doesn’t recognize a lot of other weird blue jay noises as blue jay noises.
For the first time I saw last night a mother spider with her babies on the back. So cute! They didn’t move or do anything, though.
I have seen nature programs about how fierce and determined weasels can be in hunting and carrying prey to their burrow, sometimes as big as themselves. This week I not only saw a weasel for the first time, but it had a rabbit about the same size at itself that it was dragging (presumably to it’s burrow).
I think it makes sense as a survival mechanism. If they stay and it actually was a predator, they could die. If they flee and there was no predator, they just come back later to feed.
I watched as a handful crows mobbed a common buzzard!
Super cool to see that up close :D
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/361652971
Has anyone else seen common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) washing peanuts or other food? I have seen them do it for several years now but nobody I mentioned it to has heard of this behaviour. They seem to like to get the peanuts wet whether they’re in the shell – they break open the shells in the bird bath – or out of the shell. Either way, they dunk the peanuts before swallowing them.
Some bird has been bopping the window for weeks, maybe months. I finally found out who does it. It’s a cardinal.
I’ve seen a crow doing that: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/340509625
I do not have pics to go along with this but, its an eomantis guttatipennis doing a lil dance with its forearms, trying to intimidate me.
I will show if I ever get pics of it but heres the mantis itself-
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/364550647
Sara @scharf, Terry @terrybb, and Justine @justineenjoyslife,
This paper suggests 5 reasons why animals dunk food before eating.
The first reason that they suggest, is to make food easier to swallow. We might note that human competitive eaters will also dunk food (such as hot dogs) to make it easier to swallow.
Food dunking behaviour has been reported from at least 40 species of birds.
Today I saw a new-for-me behaviour. I saw a little owl (Athene noctua) land next to a rock rather close to me. It must have seen me as well, because then it started bobbing its head up and down. It looked really funny, but I suppose it was to focus me better. Apparently it came to the conclusion, that I was too close and it flew to a more secluded spot under a roof. No video, but here is the observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/365701631
I saw this white-tailed doe cross the road in my subdivision from my next door neighbors yard to the neighbor across the street, where she began to munch on what I believe is a Euonymus shrub. She eventually went behind the row of shrubs where she stayed for a bit, obscured from my sight, eventually working her way back out into the open, and then back to munching on the shrub. It wasn’t until I processed the photo that I noticed what appears to be a very full udder. I’m betting she had a fawn concealed behind those shrubs. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/365852965
I always enjoy seeing bee assassins living up to their name: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/365043814
Wow! It’s hard to believe how strong (and determined!) they are. Like a commentator in your observation, I too, am indeed envious!
A couple posts about grackles made me think of the time my wife witnessed something at our backyard feeder.
For weeks we had been finding several decapitated sparrow fledglings around the feeder area. But no heads. Then one day, my wife actually saw a large grackle actually perform the attack and decapitation.
Opportunistic, for sure. But what was it about all those heads? Easy protein/fat source?
As for opportunistic, I’ll never forget the mid-afternoon drama I saw at a local creek of a grackle chasing… a bat!
It was quite the ‘dog-fight’ in the air, but in the end, the bat’s incredible aerobatics allowed it to escape the much larger attacker. Here’s the obs that includes a short animated GIF of the final chase scene (only works in desktop mode for me): https://www.inaturalist.ca/observations/155248682