Feathered Adolescents

This year, for the first time, we're keeping our bird feeders stocked through the summer. One of the benefits of this is that we're meeting the offspring of the birds that visit faithfully throughout the winter, and continue to come throughout the summer.

In years past, we've enjoyed watching the fledgling Barn Swallows teetering and begging while perched on the clotheslines just beyond our windows. This year we've seen a family of house finches, with the young fluttering their wings desperately until the female stuffed something into their mouths. A drably colored cardinal visits at the feeder, his crest giving away his parentage, and his shape looking right. But he's still small. Yesterday for the first time we saw a juvenile Red Bellied Woodpecker. He/she looks just like the parents, except for being smaller and lacking any red coloration on the head. There's only a dark fuzz where the red will appear someday.

The Red Bellied Woodpecker has an ill-concealed sense of superiority. It's as if he feels any bird with a bill smaller and weaker than his can not be tolerated in the same feeding vicinity. Meanwhile, this young upstart travels back and forth between the feeder and his pounding tree repeatedly, gobbling greedily one more seed morsel at each feeding opportunity.

We're also seeing some adult birds that spend only the summer months here. The Red Headed Woodpecker was one such recent visitor. Earlier this spring, the two species of Buntings were other such birds.

I have heard back about my Bronzed Cowbird report. The Rare Bird Report official who lives in Kansas wrote me that this bird has never before been reported in Kansas, but it is moving north of its earlier range, and they are expected to arrive here someday.

At the end of August, a group will meet to decide whether or not to allow this sighting to have official status. A photograph would be welcome, and I could not provide that. I saw it only once--also perhaps not very convincing. However, Hiromi also saw it, and the red eye was obvious and remarkable to both of us; it's the defining characteristic of this bird. The fact that we didn't know any bird that fit this description and then found it in the bird book should make the sighting seem valid. And it often travels in the company of grackles, blackbirds, and other cowbirds. That fit, since the other birds in the vicinity were Grackles.

Being home to see the birds is a good thing about being on Sabbatical.