A Few Items Worth Mentioning

• Just a few hours after I posted about male cardinals feeding the females, I actually witnessed this! I don't think they were mating because it seems too late for that, and the female was not scruffy like the juvenile I had seen a few weeks prior so I assumed it was an adult female. It looked like she was receiving a sweet kiss from her love. 

• Later that day a bluebird took a quick respite from flying in the heat to perch on the top of the shepherd's hook. I have never seen a bluebird before so this was very exciting for me. He had his mouth wide open. I've seen other birds do this and I wondered if it's a cooling mechanism, much like panting for a dog. Turns out it is, the internet says. It was pretty hot that day. 

• The blue jays have been very noisy today! I rarely hear them, and usually only so when I walk through the parts of the neighborhood where the trees are thicker. They're so loud I expect a flock of them to land in my yard to begin the Angry Blue Jay Territory Convention.  

• On my way to the library yesterday I saw a dark wide wingspan circle over the street a ways in front of me and land over some road kill. I was able to drive right up to it before it flew away revealing itself to be a turkey vulture! Before I knew what it was I was describing it to Rob and said it looked like a big black bird with a red turkey head. I wouldn't call them "pretty." 

• I love it when I surprise the birds at my feeder. Many of them are so focused on eating that they don't hear me walking from the car to the front door. When I get right next to the feeder they all scream, fly to the nearest branch, and if they're chickadees, they scold me until I shut the front door behind me. Last week I surprised a goldfinch. He looked right at me, paused as if processing what he saw, then gave a startled warble before flying away.