What a relief! Spring is marching on despite the terrible pandemic.
It's a little slow to arrive up here in the mountains. We thought it was officially here last week, but as you can see by the current forecast, we may end up doing some shoveling before the week is over.
Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
It's been an exciting week at the hummingbird feeders. Our beautiful resident Anna's hummingbird has had to share the feeder with migrants and other returning hummers.
Calliope Hummingbird (Selasphorus calliope) by Adam Roberts
This Calliope hummingbird found our feeder on its long journey. These birds are the smallest breeding North American birds and they are the smallest long-distant migrants (Calder, 2020). Imagine they spend the winter as far south as Mexico and some travel as far north as Canada to nest. As you can see by the previous photo, they can be overlooked when they are sharing a feeder with other hummers but they are smaller if you compare sizes.
Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus)
During the same week, a few of these bold hummingbirds arrived. They are quite determined to fill up on the nectar with good reason. They, too, have a long migration route each year. These birds travel to the northwest and Canada each year to nest.
Black-headed Grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus) by Dave Pelham
The other exciting new bird of the week is the black-headed grosbeak. It showed up both in our yard and our neighbor's nearly simultaneously. These are the birds that bring beautiful songs to our forest every morning. They have returned from Mexico to breed in our mountains. Lucky us!
California Scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica)
This pair of jays that live in our yard aren't too thrilled with the new arrival. Hopefully, the grosbeak will persevere. Although the scrub-jays are quite intelligent, they sure aren't as musical as the grosbeaks.
Western Grey Squirrel
As I sit here working on my blog post, this cute furry squirrel has been gobbling up all the birdseed that is out for the birds. Normally, I would scare him off of the feeder since he has a kazillion pine cones he can choose from but isn't he adorable?
Various pals
Since the weather is going to be harsh this week, consider putting out some "nectar' for hummingbirds. The migrants need to fatten up to restore their energy for their long journey.
Finally, you may want to join others around the world by putting up some "animals" in your windows for the kids and other neighbors who are walking past your house. There is a huge worldwide scavenger hunt going on right now. It started when kids were missing their friends due to the cancelation of school and social distancing. For more about this story, go to
Teddy Bear Scavenger Hunt Worldwide
Keep healthy and enjoy Spring!
Click on photos to enlarge.
Photos and content (unless specified) by Robin Roberts
.Calder, W. A. and L. L. Calder (2020). Calliope Hummingbird (Selasphorus calliope), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
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