Juvenile robin in the sorrel
Topic: birds

I'm just back from a weekend away, up early in the morning to check out what the plants did while I was gone.  An adult robin is chirping in a strange way, deep in the hungarian lilac bushes.  I get closer to check it out, and hear another different chirp, but I can't tell where.  The adult robin has a worm in her beak, and she seems to try to lead me away, flying over the fence out of my reach.  Then I sense something near my feet.  It's a young robin, about the size of an adult but with incompletely formed tail, and some feathers sticking out, frozen like a statue in the sorrel.  I back away quickly.

So that's why that pair of robins has been grabbing worms constantly out of the garden and lawn for the past week or so!

I hope the young one makes it.  I escort the neighbor cat out of the yard when I see him.  He's old and slow, so I have hope. 

Chickadee family feeding in the yard
Topic: birds
This afternoon I heard the familiar cheeping of begging chickadees, but it was not coming from the birdhouse.  There were at least five, maybe six, chickadees flitting about in the thick brush.  They moved so fast, there may be four young, but there are certainly three.  One of the adults is the most bedraggled live bird I have ever seen.  I hope those youngsters learn how to feed themselves pretty soon.  But they are beyond cute, as one landed on a branch a foot away from my face, stared at me, cocked its head and said "cheep".  Cute, and also strangely intuitive.

Chickadees fledged (or are gone anyway)
Topic: birds
This morning I heard them - this afternoon - not.  No chickadees are visible in the yard.  The babies are gone, one way or another.  I wasn't in the yard much today, so I can only hope they all flew away.

First asparagus harvest of the year
Topic: asparagus
I harvested a good handful of thick stalks and a few thin ones.  I see that last year I harvested first on June 17th, only a day earlier than this year.  So much for a late spring!  I guess the asparagus is not as sensitive to air temperature as other things.

Chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, oh my
Topic: birds

The young chickadees in the house above my kitchen window are chirping more loudly now, sounding more like adults and less like peepers.  The two adults are deliving mosquitoes, delphinium defoliaters, and some long-legged flying thing, arriving with beaks full and bug parts sticking out all directions.  A nuthatch family (two adults and a young one, I believe) have begun using the bird feeder like a McDonald's drive up, flitting back and forth between it and the birch/spruce thicket in the back, peeping their little horns frantically.  At least two juncos are the silent users of yard, hopping through the vegetable garden.

When the chickadees sound the alarm with dee-dee-dee I go out and distract the neighbor's cat, who is more interested in getting picked up and petted than stalking birds, although I'm sure he'd kill all the birds he could catch.