Early morning foraging

Mockingbird and robin observed foraging for food one summer morning. Watch closely and you will see the mockingbird find one of the meal worms I put out frequently :-)

Grackles Preparing To Roost

Video of grackles preparing to roost along University Drive in Denton, TX.  Listen to the wonderful grackle songs as they prepare to settle down

Starling Hides From House Sparrows

Young starling appears to be playing hide and seek from house sparrows. After the young starling finally flies off we get to see a mother sparrow feed its fledgeling with some suet cake.

Mother Grackle Teaching Young Grackle To Drink

You don't see this everyday. A mother grackle has brought her fledgeling to the water bath for the first time to show it how to drink. Notice how the fledgeling keeps demanding food/drink from it's mother and how the mother will demonstrate how to drink then give some drink directly to the fledgeling's mouth.

The next day I noticed the same fledgeling again.  Notice his mother isn't so willing to feed him this time. 

Laura's Birding Blog: Chickadees

Laura's Birding Blog: Chickadees: "(Transcript of For the Birds for July 8 ) I love watching chickadees every day of the year, through every season, and it seems especially..."

Young starlings and bluejays 7-15-11

One young starling explores the hollow of the stump holding our elevated bird bath and bird feeder, the second is content to drink deeply.  Next is a visit from a couple young bluejays, most likely siblings.  One of the bluejays looks like it would like to eat some of the suet cake but then joins his/her sibing at the water.  Their visit is ended abrubtly, probably by me coming out to check on the camera (doh)

The Early Bluejay gets the freshest suet

I replaced the suet cake in our backyard yesterday and left the bloggie recorder monitoring it from the tripod under the peach tree.  It wasn't long before one of our bluejays discovered it and allowed himself to be filmed on two seperate trips to the cake.  In the clip below I play it at normal speed then again at half speed.  Let me know what you think :-)