“How many peanuts can I fit in my bill?”
It was an exciting day in the yard last week when yard bird #38 showed up, haven’t seen it since:
House Finches, male feeding female (or young one)
This was also exciting (to me). After 24 years of living in this house and having our aloe veras multiply exponentially so that there are now several beds of them, we had one that bloomed yellow. How that hasn’t happened until now and why it’s the only one that is a different species is a mystery. The hummingbirds love the orange ones but didn’t seem impressed by this yellow one so the bees took over.
Honey Bee on yellow Aloe blooms
Yellow-rumped Warbler, Audubon’s
Prepare for cuteness. This little Anna’s fledgling wants her mom to keep feeding her but mom thinks she needs to be on her own, with a little supervision:
You can see she’s able to find food with all the pollen on her bill. She just wants her mom to do it.
Here is my NSFW (Not Safe for Work) image, pretend it’s Nat Geo:
A sure sign of spring in the desert is the return of these guys, who love to drink the nectar from saguaro blossoms. As far as I know, there are very few or no saguaros in our neighborhood but we always get a few of them who hang out here. The blue eye shadow is very noticeable.
My little Orange-crowned Warbler that stayed in our yard for the last 5 months has now migrated, too. Hope he or she returns in the fall.