Bluebird pictures and a towhee!
Greetings! Lots of fun bird pictures to show you today, and of course the bluebirds are the headliners, except for this very cool butterfly that landed on some really bright green leaves in our backyard. Butterflies aren’t birds, but they do fly, and it adds some fun color right at the top! This blog gladly welcomes any bonus wildlife that flies, runs, or crawls into or through our backyard 
(I tried to put a small smiley face here, but it made a graphic that messed up the layout, so consider yourself smiled at).
All of these pictures are from earlier this week, either Saturday, Sunday, or Monday…and yes, the bluebirds are bountiful once again. Hooray! 
Yesterday I practically got swarmed by two friendly (friendly and swarming don’t typically go together, I know) chipping sparrows as I put seed out. The bluebirds were right there, too, up on the gutter and flying to the closest tree branch. Above is one of our newest bluebird babies or fledglings, about a month old. There should be three of them around, but I think I’ve only seen two at the same time. The juveniles from the first brood may have moved on…haven’t seen them recently.
To the left is one of the common scenes right now…both bluebird parents at the nestbox. Still no nest building yet, just lots of inspections and site visits. The babies seem allowed to land on the roof briefly, but they often get chased away. The catbirds (there are at least two in our area now, possibly three) are still landing there if the bluebirds are out of sight. On a related note, and in an effort to further accommodate and cater to our beloved bluebirds, I have joined with them in what could be called “Operation Luke Skywalker.” Follow me on this one…I have taken to calling the catbirds “the evil catbirds,” since they chase 
all the smaller birds away from the feeders (only the bluebirds and yours truly chase the catbirds…and possibly Chico, our neighbor’s cat, but I digress). Also, the catbirds remind me of Darth Vader (from Star Wars, of course) with their dark grey bodies and black head streak. So, Operation Luke Skywalker consists of me, a large water gun by the back door, and repeated hosings of rude catbirds when other birds are not in the splash zone. I’ll keep you updated on my progress!
Last but not least, we have two new first-timers to the blog: a male Eastern towhee (black and orange bird in the grass…the female is brown and orange) and a Northern mockingbird (grey bird on the perch). The mockingbird is a rare feeder visitor for us…much more common in the front yard where they dive bomb Chico. I put mockingbirds squarely in the class of catbirds. Towhees, on the other hand, are one of my favorite birds because of their single, loud ”Tweet!” sounds and because they hop backward while trying to “rake” leaves (to look for insects). I just think they’re fun birds to watch!
The other birds there are: Carolina wren in the clear mealworm bowl feeder, cardinal at the seed plate, and mourning dove at the plate. Nothing new with the robin nest except that I’m squawked at vehemently now whenever I appear on the deck (see previous entry). Bye for now! Dave
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“Dear Daddy, we really loved your blog, and we hope to see you soon.” Fun to see what’s been going on in the old backyard. Great writing and pictures!