It's migration time, and they're all running through us. The Canada Geese
Hear the honking above you-it's hard to miss, but the Canada Geese are comin' through. They do winter in the area (wherever there's an open body of water, even if its a company pond, they're there), but on Sunday there was maybe a thousand, in three different flites.
Several things are great about this.
1) They're back, and these birds can be very personable. Some of the CG's don't like humans, but others will feed out of your hand. The ones in the park near about 14th and Elizabeth( I was near there to-day)do eat : the ones on the campus of Brooks HS don't.
2)In World War 2, the Allied bombers would circle the skies over their base until all of the flite was congregated, then they'd begin their flite properly to where
they were going to bomb. Mainly they'd fly in those V formations for mutual protection. So over England back in the day they'rd be hundreds of planes circling circling circling until it was time to go. Same thing with these tremendous honkers. I'm not sure how high their flite patterns are, but above the house on sunday morn. were hundreds and hundreds of those loud ass things circling so they could properly V up. I saw three giant flites, two were somewhere around 400, and one about half that size (I counted up a section of the sky, then guessed the total each time.) The thing about it is you can here the cachophony of honks - impossible to miss. I was on the phone w/ gf and told her about it, then told her to go out side - NOW!- to see. They were flying north by northwest, from my house to hers.
3)They're beautiful birds, and huge. No way a bald Eagle would mess with these things.
The Common Grackles
First one of the season was seen by me on Saturday. They're bossy biggish birds (wait, though : they're probably 1/30th the size of a CG, but compared to a finch, y'know). What was new? .
For the first time I saw them hanging on the suet feeder. They have never been on it before, it being the dominoin of the starlings, woodpeckers, Parakeets, and the occasional cardinal. We'll see if these guys try to move permanently(sp) onto it. They are bullies. Once I tried to entice a ring billed gull into the yard by tossing it bread- it hung on the roof, being too wary to desend into the enclosed yard (takes them a bit to take off, so they stayed away) until the grackles entered the scene and drove the gull away. Remember that scene from Independence Day when the humans had won and instead of our USAF F-18 Hornets being chased away by the flying saucers, the human planes were now flying after the aliens? same sorta scene: two grackles ripping on the tail of a much larger gull. Nice site, and I'm glad I could pass it on. I once coached Neice #3 in a summer league, and since the teams colours were blue and purple, I named them the Common Grackles, or the Grackles for short. They were of an age, 12-3, where they just thought this was great. I had another team in black and yellow that year: the Starlings. Both dominated the league that year, especially the Grackles.
Addendum
Parakeets for the first time in a while (usually I'm @ work, so I don't see them often)
Cardinal, again first time in awhile. Some Cardinals migrate, some stay. I've created the conditions for my neighbourhood pair to stay, but they have gone for the 3d year in a row.
Singing and shouting. It's spring, and sSunday ws the day they were in fine voice. Chatter everywhere. I like.
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