Encounters of a Bird Kind

I was recently organizing a few of my 15,641 pictures when I noticed that over the past few weeks I had taken quite a few bird pictures. Upon further reflection I realized I had enough material for my own version of an Audubon handbook. I should add my disclaimer here and let you know that I am not a bird expert and some of this information about birds might be incorrect. Do not use any of this info to write a bird report. Now on with this story.


I took this picture when I was in Florida. I ran recklessly into the middle of the road to capture this shot. I was convinced it was a Bald Eagle and was screeching while taking the shot to try and attract this bird to land close by.
My screeching was successful and the bald eagle landed! Although it wasn't a bald eagle. It turns out that this actually was a turkey vulture which really are ugly and large. This particular bird had a wicked attitude and tried to scare me. I informed him that it takes more than some ugly bird to scare me.

So...maybe I was a bit scared. I scurried away quickly after snapping this final shot of Mr. Mean Turkey Vulture although I must admit I do like the color of his feathers but I wouldn't tell him that.

This is the graceful Great Blue Heron that hangs out by the pond near my mom's house in the Sunshine state. He has a calm personality and a much more positive attitude than mean Mr. Turkey Vulture.

He is searching for some dinner. I love the way he can move his neck.

Success! You can see the tail of a small fish sticking out of his bill.

Now some might find the following story disturbing so I am warning you ahead of time. Sometimes nature can be harsh. One day when changing sheets in our guest bedroom I looked out of the window to see that we had a new tenant living in our roof gables. A mother robin had built a nest and was hanging out waiting for the birth of her babies. I was quite excited and each day would sit and watch her as she flew around fixing her nest. Most of the time she just sat and kept her eggs warm. I paced anxiously, waiting for their arrival.

And then on the morning of June 1, 2009 Mama Robin's babies hatched and she began the task of feeding her newborns. I couldn't see them yet but I knew they were in there and was a proud Auntie. Mama Robin was a hard worker, tireless, as she fed, protected and continued to keep them warm.

So imagine my surprise, confusion and dismay when one morning I went to visit the Robin family and instead I found this sitting in the middle of their nest...

a Mourning Dove! What the heck! I yelled to my husband that we had an emergency situation -pronto! He ran up the stairs three at a time since I was distraught, crying and screaming. Totally breathless he asked me what was wrong ~ all I could do was point out at the nest.

We didn't know what to do. Twice I saw the Mama Robin dive bomb the nest but Papa Mourning Dove appeared out of nowhere and chased her off. I don't know where the robin babies are or if there are now baby doves living in the nest. We did consider getting a large pole to boot the intruder off of the nest but we did not do that. We figured that this is nature and we had better not mess around with it. I was sad though and all hopes of getting pictures of the baby robins for the family album vanished. I think this Mourning Dove has beady little eyes and I do not trust her.

And like many of the tenants who have rented from us over the years, this one was no different. I went to check on their nest one morning to find that they had skipped out in the cover of darkness without cleaning up their place and of course, with no rent paid. The worse part is that I will never know why this happened or what happened to the babies.

Emotionally exhausted from the robin/mourning dove drama I decided to focus more on my plants. I have these beautiful cascading 'somethings' hanging from planters on my front porch. And yes, I know they must have an official name besides 'somethings' but there was no identifying tag in them when I bought them so I asked the clerk what they were and she said, "they are cascading somethings." Honest. So...I was standing on a chair so I could reach my 'somethings' and I noticed straw sticking out of the top of the planter. I screamed to my husband who once again came running to see what was the matter this time.

He lifted the planter off of the hook so I could see if there was something inside of my somethings. And sure enough...

A Mama Robin decided that none of the thousands of trees on our property would be a good place to make a nest. Nope. Let's make the nest in the middle of the hanging somethings. Let's start a family right here.

I refuse to get emotionally attached this time. I swear. I am not going to get involved in any drama. But I do wonder why there is only one egg. I wonder if I can water my plant. I wonder how many more days until we have a baby bird chirping away. I wonder if I will be able to get an award winning photo. I wonder where the Mourning Dove is living now. I wonder...