Nestlings

Dad with a mouthful of yummy goodness for the babes.
A grasshopper, perhaps?



As mentioned before, there are three nests quite nearby of which we are aware, and I am sure that there are dozens more all about us that we haven't discovered yet. There are the little wrens in the skull on the porch; the woodlets (offspring of our golden-fronted woodpeckers); and the little cardinals in the jasmine outside the kitchen window. The wrens and the woodlets have been hatched for over a week—I don't know the exact dates, but I first heard both sets of young on May 1st.

The cardinal eggs hatched just a few days ago, sometime between Wednesday and Thursday mornings (the 7th and 8th of May), and we are fascinated by the teeny tiny birds and their parents, who are feeding them nonstop and looking out for them in other ways, such as coming to sit on them when it rains. Hugh is begging and pleading with me to take photos; I tell him I will do it only if I can manage to do so without alarming them. I was going to try this morning but it's very overcast, and they're deep in the jasmine, through a dirty window and a screen, and I don't think there will be enough light. Maybe I'll try anyway, or try tomorrow.

Other younguns are starting to appear. I have seen 2 scrub jay babies at the feeders, and I think that the Scott's Oriole couple have a young one with them suddenly, too.

He is watching me and thinking, perhaps, that he'll peck my eyes out if I get any closer to that nest.