Friday, May 1

It was a beautiful day after the rain, maybe that was part of the reason there was a great variety of birds at our feeders. However, May is always my favorite month for watching birds. Some are migrating and others have returned for the summer and fall.

I was surprised to see a pair of Baltimore Orioles. I haven’t seen an oriole for many years. Enjoy my day with me.

Red-bellied Woodpecker – Male

Rose-breasted Grosbeak – Male. When I first saw him, he was drinking from the moat above the hummingbird feeder. I use the moats to keep ants from getting to the sugar water.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak – Female

I had so much fun watching the orioles.

Hairy Woodpecker

They look like a Downy Woodpecker but are larger.

A Chipping Sparrow in his summer colors – a rust colored head.

Hairy Woodpecker

The female oriole is more yellow than orange.

When Cerwin took a mailing to the post office, I asked him to stop at the grocery store for an orange and cheap grape jelly – hoping to keep the Baltimore Orioles. The first bird to check it out was a female grosbeak.

Catbird

This is when I saw a second pair of orioles – notice the one in the tree on the right.

The second pair

These two males were not particularly pleased to be in the same tree.

Now there are three pair! Notice the three males – bottom left – center and top right. By this time I basically stayed at our kitchen and dining room windows.

Downy Woodpecker

Chipping Sparrow

Female Cardinal

Look at his feathers – you can tell it is breezy.

An oriole found the jelly. Yay!

Because of the rain the day before, the dropping suet seemed to be a main attraction – whether on a feeder roof or on the ground.

Male finch feeding his mate

Female Cardinal in my colander feeder

Catbird

Then to top off the day, I saw my first hummingbird of the year.

Oh, what a delightful day.