The babies are leaving home...

Each time I go to the heronry now, I see more and more empty nests...

...which is a good thing! It means the babies have fledged and are now out in the world, but I've been watching these nests and these birds since early February when the males arrived to stake out their territory, and I've gotten used to them and their froggy, croaking sounds! I will miss watching them.

Remember the first seven couples I found paired together on nests? Their babes were the first to go, and all of their nests are empty, but lots and lots of birds are still at the rookery. When you arrive, you see babies everywhere flapping their wings, slowly developing their flight muscles and getting ready to fly off on their own. The baby frog sound has grown much stronger, and there is definitely a lot of croaking (and almost growling) in the air! The colony is very noisy.

Practice!

Practice!

Practice!

Next year I will be better at watching...and maybe I'll have a bigger lens too. I wonder when the last baby will fledge. It will be interesting to see. (For all the heronry posts up to now, just click on the sentence under the Heron painting in the right sidebar.)

A perfect, tiny little fawn in my parent’s yard

Last week we were eating dinner on my parent's screened-in porch when a female White-tailed Deer peeked in at us with startled eyes. She was standing no more than five feet from us, which wouldn't be unusual if you lived in the country or in the suburbs where developers had just ripped through a forest, destroying their homes, but we were in the city in an established neighborhood with lovely sidewalks, big trees, and usually no deer. When we got up to look closer, we found mama had a fawn with her--a tiny little thing maybe a foot and a half tall at the shoulder (if that). This perfect little spotted creature looked and acted so much like Bambi I could hardly stand it! Apparently mama was looking for a safe place for her baby, but after seeing all of us ogling her from the porch decided the front yard was safer so returned with the newly born fawn to finish off the geraniums. Mama also seemed to like violets and roses (but then don't we all?)  

Masked bandit in the wild...

I’ve gotten so used to seeing our piggy little raccoons lazily devouring our bird seed in our backyard at night, that when I saw this guy carefully climb out of a hole in a tree, blink a few times in the sun, climb over to a smaller branch, and then lumber back into the same hole, it came as a surprise. A raccoon in the wild! I hung around for a while and watched him reappear and disappear a few more times. It was perfect viewing. I'm sure you can already guess that as I watched this sleepy little fellow I was standing on the Little Miami Bike Trail (where I really should just pitch a tent and be done with it!). I was standing in the area where the Indigo Buntings and Scarlet Tanagers hang out, about 40 or 50 feet past the Red-tailed Hawk's nest. In this spot, the land drops off considerably on the river side of the path, and the river departs from the trail, leaving a sizeable area of swampy lowland filled with large Sycamore trees and other smaller trees that you can look into the canopy of. This fellow was eye level with me on the trail, but 40 or 50 feet from the ground in a huge old Sycamore. He didn't stay awake too long. Deciding it was too much effort to climb down the tree, he slowly made his way back into his house, and I assume fell asleep until a more reasonable hour when the moon would wash the leaves with a soft glow and the fireflies and bats would keep him company. 

Red-eyed Vireo Alley

When you walk the Little Miami Bike Trail near the powder factory, there is one spring/summer visitor you will always hear, the Red-eyed Vireo. This neotropical migrant sings almost non-stop and has a call that is easy to recognize. Since the day the vireos arrived this spring, I have heard them every time I’ve been on the trail, no matter the hour of the day or the type of weather. You can also tell where one bird’s territory leaves off and another’s picks up, because the new owner is usually there to tell you. He has a happy call, and a fairly loud call too, “Look up!…See me?...Over here….This way…Higher still!”




The Red-eyed Vireo was one of the first migrant’s songs I ever learned. I had read that a Scarlet Tanager sang a lot like an American Robin with a sore throat. So when I heard a song reminiscent of a robin’s song one day I thought by chance it might be a Scarlet Tanager, but soon enough I tracked him down and found instead a Red-eyed Vireo! That was a long time ago, and I’ll always remember that moment of recognition. It made me feel good to have figured something out on my own. It also helped me realize the power of birding by ear. Luckily, I had the song cemented into my brain that morning because the bird went on to sing about 20 reps before flying to some other part of his territory.


This lovely summer bird never seems to tire. Even in the heat of a summer’s day at noon I’ve heard him piping out his little song. Recently, I read in Jim McCormac’s book, “Birds of Ohio,” that “a pair requires only about one acre of forest for their territory, so densities can be quite high.” This explains the non-broken line of vireo song I hear as I walk along the Little Miami Bike Trail and why the trail becomes “Red-eyed Vireo Alley” in the summer.

A family of Downy Woodpeckers out and about on the trail...(BPW #40)

What a sweet sight--about ten feet off the trail, a female Downy Woodpecker was foraging on a tree trunk when out of nowhere her sweetheart flew in with a bill full of caterpillars and gently fed them to her. At least that’s what I thought was going on at first... 

Then the male flew off quickly, and very efficiently nabbed another insect only to deliver it to another girlfriend? “How did she get all the way over here…” was the thought going through my mind as the male darted off in another direction and delivered food to yet another woodpecker. “Duh!” registered almost immediately…"these are babies and the male is the papa!" And did he ever work hard. I spent the next 30 minutes watching the male fly nonstop from baby to baby with bites to eat. I think there were four babies. That’s all I could keep track of because they were not sitting still on the trunks. They were also flying from tree to tree, so not only did the papa have to find the prey for his offspring, he then had to find his offspring to feed them. It was truly amazing to watch and listen to him and the babies.

Although not a great photo, it shows the frantic 

pace of the departing papa who was trying 

to keep up with his babies’ appetites!

As soon as i realized these were babies, it was so obvious. They were making soft baby sounds calling to their papa. They were also very gentle and hesitant as they probed the bark and pecked a little here and there into the tree trunks.

Baby learning how to forage and dig 

out insects in soft, decaying bark.

Baby Downy with a speckled breast. Just look 

at that baby Downy's head...so cute!

…and Papa Downy wasn't the only father busy in the deep wood. Papa Red was working very hard to teach his two children (one of which who looked nothing at all like him but very much like a fluffy little Cowbird) learn to forage. Papa Cardinal kept the two babies low on the hill buried deep in the undergrowth, safely out of the camera lens’ reach!


I'm finally starting to get over this cold/sinus infection. The antibiotics I got on Friday are working and my energy is returning. I've been writing almost daily about the birds, and taking a few days off to rest seemed very weird. 

Click here to see some great bird photos from around the world.

Three Baby Red-tailed Hawks...and an Indigo Bunting on the Little Miami Bike Trail

After dinner I headed over to the trail to check on the eyas. Even though I wasn't feeling that great because of my cold, I had to see how the baby was doing. I'm glad I went, because when I reached the nest and looked up, I saw two little white fluffy heads looking down at me! 

The new eyas is on the left, not quite as white as the first baby. 

As I watched the two babies, the sun came out from behind a cloud and backlit them, highlighting their little fuzzy dandelion-top heads. And slowly, as if disturbed from sleep by the sun's bright rays, a third little white head rose up and two dark eyes blinked into my camera lens. 

...and the three babies just watched, and looked...and watched and looked, their eyes huge and their expressions wise. They were very calm, barely moving, seemingly trying to absorb everything they saw around them, and (I'm sure) hoping mama would show up soon with something yummy to eat!

Dark clouds were starting to move over the trail, and the light had stopped filtering through the trees. It was 6:07, which was still early, so the darkness was definitely not from nightfall. A slight drop in temp and the sound of wind moving through the leaves as it pushed down the trail, confirmed it. A storm was brewing. I decided to move on. A Wood Thrush and an Indigo Bunting had been singing at full throttle for a while, and it would be lovely to see them before I left... However, a few rumbles of thunder off in the distance convinced me it was time to go, but then I saw him. Even in the darkening gloom, the Indigo Bunting shone electric blue.  

He was pretty far off the trail, and with a shutter speed slowing down to compensate for the lack of light, I knew these photos would be blurry, but I was hoping to capture his beautiful blue. Another rumble...and a much sharper wind hurried me along. I almost made it. I caught up to a husband and wife team also trying to beat the storm...and we laughed as the rain poured down. Cyclists were pouring off the trail too...also laughing. At least the rain was warm. It felt really good! 

Red-tailed Hawk's Nest on the Little Miami Trail

About a month or so ago, two Red-tailed Hawks were making a huge ruckus high up in a Sycamore tree on the trail, calling and crying out incessantly. Usually I only see hawks soaring overhead as I catch glimpses of them through the branches, so this was new behavior and I wondered what was up. Trying to find an opening in the branches to see what these birds were doing took a little time, but suddenly I saw a flash of pale red, other movement, and then a huge nest! Wow! No wonder they were squawking. They were building a home. Since then, I checked the nest every time I walked past, but I never saw any activity, so I assumed the couple must have abandoned it for other digs. But this weekend when I looked up, I saw something, and when I zoomed in...there was a head buried deep among the sticks!


Mama Red-tail was silent, nonmoving, and perfectly camouflaged in her nest. If I hadn't used my binocs, I never would have noticed her (and I wondered if she or papa had been sitting up there, hidden, for the past month). I watched for a while to see if papa would show up, but he didn't, so I continued to walk on up the trail, hoping to see a Scarlet Tanager or a few Indigo Buntings at their normal hangout. No tanagers were about, but I did see an Indigo Bunting, and even better--as I walked past the nest on my way back, I looked up and saw a baby! I couldn't believe it. A fluffy, white, large-eyed cutie was looking over the edge of the nest, no doubt waiting for mama or papa to bring it some food.

This gives you an idea of just how huge this Sycamore 

tree is. It towers over the other trees. Check out the size of 

the branches holding the nest. They are larger than most 

trees' trunks! The nest is huge, and this is just one part of it. 

Little baby get back in that nest! 

Mama will be home soon with dinner.

...and let's zoom in once more. Look at those precious eyes--

huge and round...and far-seeing, a fluffly, soft, downy eyas 

sitting atop a pile of sticks. Watching, listening, waiting.

I hung around for a while hoping mama or papa would return with some food, but neither did. Eventually, the baby started sinking back down in the nest, so I left. About 10 minutes into the return trip, I decided to turn back to see if either of the parents had flown in with a meal, but neither had, and baby must have nodded off to sleep, because once again the nest looked empty. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next week!