Grackle and Squirrel

 

The grackles have come to town.  Another nuisance - or so we at first thought!  Chris was driving them off and looking online for inventive ways to get rid of them when she discovered maybe it's not so bad to let them hang around.  They are only here for a few weeks, and they eat bugs!  If they're willing to eat the awful centipedes that sometimes wind up in the house, we're all for letting them stay!  Now, whatever is going on with the head of this one we don't know.  They usually have a beautiful shiny blue head, but this one either has some albino traits or a bad case of alopecia or mange or molting or something.  We're willing to let them hang around but not all that interested to spend more time figuring out the odd looks of this one. 

 

There's a new philosphy around here; if you cant beat them, join them.  Even though it's been a very tame winter this year, there were a few very cold days when the squirrels looked miserable and hungry. They continued to raid the bird feeders, driving Chris crazy, so she broke down and bought them their own corn cob treats.  They ate through those pretty quickly and seemed most appreciative.  Since they are sort of comical and fun to watch when they're not invading the birds' territory, Chris decided to put out some over ripe strawberries to see if they would like those.  Seems it's best to keep the little critters occupied with treats which keeps us all happy.

Baby Bird Feeding

 

A pair of tufted titmice

Baby Grackle

It's baby bird time in our yard. A family of tufted titmice visit the feeder early each morning. We usually don't photograph grackles but we make an exception for baby birds.

Greater Antillean Grackle in Jamaica

 

This bird has a wide range of songs and they are very amusing. We would always look when we heard it and expect to see a different bird because of the variation (perhaps something more colorful).

Grackle feeding its offspring

This is our first baby sighting of the year. We always think it's amusing that baby birds seem to be the same size as their parents but are still demanding to be fed. These two entertained Chris for a while this AM.