First hummer and oriole

We had two new arrivals today - a gorgeous male Baltimore Oriole and a female hummingbird. I guess that means summer's really on its way! :)

First hummingbird of 2013

Finally - FINALLY - had our first hummer of the year show up at the feeders this morning. It was a gorgeous little male, and he visited the Oriole feeder for a while before finding one of the feeders actually meant for him. This is 5 days later than last year, so I was starting to get a little worried.

In 2012, our first Baltimore Oriole showed up on May 2, and the hummers on May 3. We had our first Oriole on May 5 this year. So yeah, they all seem a bit delayed, but they're finally here! :)

Crippled hummingbird

Discovered something very sad yesterday - our male hummingbird has a broken leg/foot. He seems to be doing okay - flies and feeds no problem, and still does the courtship dive for the females - but when he perches, he straddles the branch and his bad leg just dangles. It breaks my little heart to see him like this. :(

Finally, some pictures!

Friday night I was able to spend half an hour shooting out my living room window (which is where I take a lot of my yard bird photos). Two female hummingbirds were semi-cooperative, and a male Baltimore Oriole posed all pretty-like just long enough for me to snap a couple of shots. Here are the results:

Fledglings everywhere

Work has been keeping me beyond busy the past month and a bit, so I haven't had much - or any - time to focus on taking pictures. Any spare time I have been spent trying to finish up the garden, and that's about it. That said, we've had a lot of bird activity lately.

• Lots of fledglings being fed in our yard: robins, starlings, grackles, sparrows, and house finches.
• Our tree swallows must have hatched their eggs, because the activity level has been crazy. One is always inside the nesting box, and the other goes off and comes back a few minutes later with food. Then they'll switch off. Lather, rinse, repeat, from dawn 'til dusk.
• We suspect there's a Killdeer nest not far off our driveway in the wheat field. We have a lot of them in the fields adjacent to our property, but they're usually pretty far out. (Except the last two weeks, when they've actually been bathing in our pond.) Anyway, there's an adult Killdeer in the same spot every time we come or go, and we figure it can't be coincidence. That has to be its designated guarding-the-nest spot. I want to try to find the little cuties (seriously, baby Killdeer are so freakin' cute it should be illegal), but I don't want to stress out the parents.
• Baltimore Orioles are our new summer bird of plenty. Yesterday there were three adult males frolicking in our pond. Yes, at the same time. It was really odd, since they're usually so territorial towards each other.
• Hummingbird activity is depressingly bad. We've got maybe two males and two females, and they don't stick around for long. They also don't seem to have developed any kind of behavioral pattern that would let me get any decent shots. Very frustrating. Hopefully activity will pick up in August again. *fingers crossed*

I win!

Our first hummingbird of the year made an appearance this morning! A little female was working the two feeders in the backyard around 7:00 AM. Yay! :)

They're baaaa-aaaack!

They're baaaa-aaaack!, a photo by Jen St. Louis on Flickr.

I love our hummingbirds. I really, really do. They make such awesome photography subjects... even if they make me crazy by moving so damn fast.