Saturday at the Little Miami Bike Trail

It’s been flurrying all day today and very cold, but Saturday it was mild and beautiful! Rick and I had a little extra time, so we ran over to the Little Miami Bike trail for a quick bit of birding. It was fun!

It was a gorgeous day. You can see things are just 

beginning to green up (although after today’s grey, 

cold, snowflurries, who knows what’s in store).

We had only walked a couple hundred feet when we saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker couple foraging together, the male very closely shadowing the female (mate-guarding behavior), and then a little further down the trail, a pair of downies were doing the same thing. It was fun to watch them, the male constantly following after the female, or sometimes, the male would fly off to another tree and the female would follow.

One half of the downy pair, the male had a watchful eye on the female!

A little further down we found this freshly excavated 

nesting cavity, but no one was around. I’ll have 

to keep watch to see if any birds take up residence!

On the way back, as we got closer to the Powder Factory, we heard the buzzy chatter of a couple of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, the first sighting of the year!! Hanging out with them was a Golden-crowned Kinglet. Rick got photos of them, but they aren’t as good as the kinglet I photographed on Sunday! :-P

I love Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. They are always 

singing, making noise, and moving all over the 

place, plus they are another bird of summer. 

On Saturday I was happy to have this photo, 

but after Sunday, the bar was raised!