Visitors Flying In

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Today we had a bunch of visitors fly into our yard for a visit. We normally have quite a few birds around our yard. We have two bird feeders that are visited quite frequently. The back half of our yard is wooded, so we check out the birds daily. On a typical day, we see Robins, Cardinals, Red-winged Blackbirds, Chickadees, and Blackbirds. Those are our daily visitors. They are my daughters friends. She loves looking for them.

Today, she spotted a Robin sitting on our fence. When it turned around, it had the biggest, puffed out belly I have ever seen on a bird. It's very hard for me to tell the difference between a male and female Robin. I would guess that it was a male because it's colors were really vibrant. My daughter is convinced that it was a mommy Robin with a baby in her tummy. I tried to research to figure it out and I learned a lot but I'm still not sure if it was a male or female. Here's a great site with information about Robins.

Last week, we put out our daughter's hummingbird feeder that she received in her Easter basket. We didn't buy the pre-made nectar from the store, we decided to try to make our own. We mixed 3 parts water with 1 part sugar. Well, it worked. Today we had a hummingbird at the feeder! Our daughter was so excited! Her bird books talk about how small they are and how they hover. She was so excited to see it in her own back yard. She called Daddy at work and both sets of grandparents to tell them about it! We learned that Hummingbirds like homemade nectar and they actually exist in our backyard! Here's the best picture I got...

Then, we saw a female Oriole trying to untie the twine on our nature tent. She sat up there pecking and pulling at that string while my daughter and I sat at the kitchen table and watched. She thought it was hilarious watching that Oriole tugging at her tent. It was fascinating to watch! Years ago, my father-in-law swore that he saw an Oriole in our yard. It kind of became a joke about the elusive Oriole. Both my husband and I have thought that we caught glimpses of one but we were never confident that it was truly what we saw. Well, today we saw it. Orioles exist in our backyard as well! I learned about the differences about male and female Orioles here.

Sorry about the grainy pictures. My little camera is fine for daily pictures but it definitely isn't for capturing pictures of birds from a distance.

I am so happy that we had all of these visitors today. I only hope that they return often. That would definitely make my little girl's day!