A warm, sunny, very windy afternoon, with occasional strong gusts that bend the pines and toss the oaks. The ground is littered with fresh green leaves blown down by the strong winds that have continued since rain storms passed through early Sunday. Undeterred, a pair of tiny Blue-gray Gnatcatchers flit from place to place in the treetops calling a raspy \u201cSpee! Spee!\u201d Several Chipping Sparrows hunt in the grass or sit on low branches and sing their long, intense trills. Our Bluebird pair is feeding babies now, making frequent trips in and out of the bluebird house. Chimney Swifts swoop overhead, twittering, and several lemon-yellow Goldfinches \u2013 not quite in their full spring gold yet \u2013 visit the feeder and sing and call from all around.<\/p>\n
A pair of Mockingbirds is trying to build a nest in a large tea olive bush right beside the porch where I\u2019m sitting. One has flown to several branches nearby, carrying in its bill some dry stems. I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s a male, since a Mockingbird male selects a nest site and builds most of the nest, though it could be either, because the female helps some, too. This one is obviously disturbed by my presence. Once, he came to the top of the tea olive bush for several seconds and considered me \u2013 then flew away again, still with the nesting materials in his bill. He and his mate sat on a low branch of a water oak and discussed the situation in harsh tones, or maybe they were scolding me. I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s going to happen if they continue to build a nest here \u2013 I have no intention of giving up sitting on the porch, but they certainly won\u2019t like having me so near.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A warm, sunny, very windy afternoon, with occasional strong gusts that bend the pines and toss the oaks. The ground is littered with fresh green leaves blown down by the strong winds that have continued since rain storms passed through early Sunday. Undeterred, a pair of tiny Blue-gray Gnatcatchers flit from place to place in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}