This Spring in Our Backyard
Bunnies, baby Bluebirds, Red-Tailed Hawks, Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks, and more!
Earlier this year I started a new job that doesn’t require quite as many meetings as my previous role. I spend a lot more time doing work on my own, and less time talking to other people via Zoom or the like.
Throughout this spring, this new work arrangement has afforded me some significant flexibility with regard to where I work from home. Whereas I previously spent virtually 100% of my days working in the shed office we built in our backyard, I’ve been able to be a bit more adventurous this spring, working in different places that don’t have to be so quiet and optimized for video calls and such.
Likewise, we’ve had a pretty warm, dry spring here in Middle Tennessee—until the last few days, anyway. So, much of the last couple of months, I have often enjoyed the first few hours of my workday sitting at the large table on our back porch. I also spend the first bit of the day, before work starts, reading my Bible and watching the goings-on of the wildlife in our yard sitting at that same table.
A couple of years ago I read the book Turning to Birds. I was paging through it again recently and came across a great quote that I think explains a bit of my experience this spring. Author Lili Taylor writes:
One thing I’ve learned by watching birds is that there’s always a story. If you stay a few more moments than you’d prefer to, if you resist the urge to move on, get going, get busy, look at your phone—if you just keep watching the bird, that’s when it happens. The it is simply life: experiencing, imagining, feeling, breathing, sharing. Then you move on, and the bird moves on, but you have a new moment to connect with your other moments. And at the end of the day, that’s all we have: a life of moments, assembled as one.
Today, I just wanted to share a bit of those moments with you. I’ve taken a handful of pictures on my iPhone this spring, and I’ll try to include some relevant ones here where possible. As yet, I haven’t convinced my wonderful wife that we should spend thousands of dollars on an elaborate camera system for my amateur wildlife photography dreams.
Maybe one day.
So, for now, you’ll have to enjoy my zoomed-in phone photography and my ramblings.
The Setup
Here’s what you need to know about my setup. In our backyard we have:
Three fence-mounted bird houses that are fixed to our back and side fence, roughly 30 feet apart—one was here when we moved into our house, and the other two have been added over time.
Two large “hopper” style bird feeders—one with two suet cages is affixed to the sides hangs from our back fence, another sits atop a pole in the middle of the yard.
Two Bark Butter Bites feeders that hang on shepherds’ hooks on the post in the middle of the yard, beside the large hopper feeder at the top.
One window feeder that is suctioned to the window of my shed office.
One finch feeder that hangs from the large tree on the side of our house.
One Birdbuddy Pro feeder that hangs from the small tree near our gate—it is equipped with a camera (like a Ring doorbell, for instance).
One cylinder feeder that hangs from the tree in the middle of our backyard.
Three hummingbird feeders spread around in different places throughout the yard.
Virtually all of these feeders and houses, except the Birdbuddy, are in view from my seat at the table on our back porch.
Over the years, the kind of bird seed we buy has morphed. In the early days, we just bought whatever cheap stuff we could find at local big box stores, sometimes ordering some from Amazon.
Then, a few years ago, Wild Birds Unlimited opened a store in my town, and since then we’ve bought the vast majority of our seed and supplies from them. The seed is more expensive than what you’ll find at the big box stores, to be sure, but they have plenty of options that both: 1) allow you to deter pests and 2) attract different kinds of birds to your yard.
We still buy suet cakes in bulk on Amazon, to reduce cost, but most often our other seed is bought at Wild Birds. Jeff and Joann are our local Wild Birds owners, and we have loved getting to know them. I know they have enjoyed watching our girls grow up through our visits, even if they do cause a bit of a ruckus in the shop sometimes while we’re browsing.
Usually, we’re most commonly buying safflower seed for our large feeders, as it is relatively cheap and deters grackles, who tend to gobble up tons of other kinds of seed. For our smaller feeders, we buy some of the more expensive “no mess” seed varieties, as those smaller feeders are in areas we’d prefer not have tons of shells and other debris pile up. Bark Butter Bites must be bought at Wild Birds, so we get that feed there, too.
This year, I’ve had to pony up a little more money to buy some of the “spicy” seed because squirrels have been more frequent guests in our yard this year. While I don’t mind the squirrels hanging around, they eat so much seed so quickly that I can’t afford to feed them. So, we have bought some spicy seed, which they don’t like, and it has helped deter them a bit. More on the squirrels later.
Now, let’s get into the birds. First, we’ll start with the usual suspects who haven’t had any notable activity this year.
The Usual Suspects
Before I walk through some of the highlights of the backyard this spring, let me brief you on the usual suspects we’ve had.
As normal, we have had the typical cast of characters that stick around year-round, mostly. That cast includes:
Cardinals
Grackles
Mourning Doves
House, Song, and White-Throated Sparrows
House and Carolina Wrens
Carolina Chickadees
Crows
Brown-Headed Cowbirds
Northern Mockingbirds
Tufted Titmouses
House Finches
Blue Jays
American Goldfinches
I really only have two brief observations I’ll make about this list, and then we’ll move on.
First, the Blue Jays haven’t been hanging around quite as much this year. I love Blue Jays. They’re so pretty. They’re large. They’re kinda bullies. But I love them. They have certainly passed through the yard and occasionally stopped by this year, but they are not hanging around as much as they have in years past.
In fact, one of our newcomers this year (at least to me in my observation) is the Tufted Titmouse. When I first saw the Titmouse flying around, I thought it was maybe a juvenile Blue Jay, as it has a similar mohawk-like crest and grey-blue coloring—but the Tufted Titmouse is significantly smaller, so that distinguished it pretty clearly.
Second, we have had so many more American Goldfinches this year. In fact, for the first time I can remember they were pretty prevalent in the backyard throughout the winter, too. I remember on one of our snowy days this year I saw a couple flitting between the trees, their yellow color sticking out against the white backdrop of snow.
That’s the report on many (but not all) of our usual suspects. Now: the highlights.
The Mostly-Absent Hummingbirds
Every Labor Day weekend, the 400-acre city park next to our neighborhood hosts a hummingbird festival. It’s a fun community event that hosts vendors of various kinds, and it’s a nice marker for the unofficial end of summer and the beginning of fall life.
One of the highlights of the hummingbird festival is getting to watch an ornithologist from the U.S. Department of the Interior catch and band hummingbirds in order to track their migration, growth, and overall health. In fact, this process has long been the centerpiece of the hummingbird festival and was the only attraction for a long time.1
Anyway, the vast majority of hummingbirds we get—like most who are west of the Mississippi River—are the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. One of the reasons these birds are caught and banded around our neighborhood is because around Labor Day the hummingbirds have begun their migration from places in the north—like Michigan—and are making their way down to winter in the Yucatán Peninsula, and plenty migrate right through our neck of the woods.
Around the beginning of August, our backyard becomes overrun by dozens of hummingbirds every single day, buzzing between our feeders. These migrating hummingbirds don’t stick around long—the woman who bands them at the hummingbird festival says we likely aren’t seeing the same ones for more than a day at a time—but they get their fill and go on their way.
So that brings us to the spring. The hummingbirds who have wintered in the Yucatán make their way back up to the North around April or so (though a smaller percentage do end up settling and breeding here). However, despite our best efforts to attract these hummingbirds in all the same ways we do in the late summer—to the tune of dozens per day—we almost never see hummingbirds in the spring on their migratory journey back north. But every year we get the feeders set up in April and we try.
As I started writing this article, we had yet to see a single hummingbird come through the yard at any point this spring. However, Susie and I were sitting on the back porch once the girls were asleep on the evening of May 12th, around dusk, and I heard the unmistakable chittering of a hummingbird—a sound that is near constant in August in September. Then, we finally saw one flying around and landing on a willow tree in our neighbor’s yard. I kept a close eye on it, and I didn’t see it fly out of the tree, so I sort of wonder if maybe we do have a resident hummingbird this spring!
Update: I got a picture of one, finally! Here it is:
Anyway, it’s been a bummer to miss out on them—mostly—again this spring, but I know that we’ll be feeding dozens again come the end of the summer, as usual. For now, we’ll just have to enjoy the other birds.
Starlings All the Way Down
Except European Starlings. We don’t have to enjoy the Starlings.
These little punks, man. I’ll tell you what.
So, before I absolutely eviscerate these birds, I do need to say that I think Starlings are pretty. They’re not awful to look at.
Do they fly funny—almost duck-like—eat all of my seed, and make awful screeching noises? Yes they do.
But they aren’t, like, ugly. So I guess it could be worse.
Okay so here’s the deal. We have so many stinking Starlings in our yard at all times right now. They weren’t too bad at the beginning of the spring, but since the start of May they have just been taking over the yard. As I understand, this timing is typical.
They’re dominant birds, and they’re bullies. They outnumber everything else. I believe they have a giant nest, or community of nests, in the eave and/or attic of our next-door neighbor’s house, from which their screeching emits all day, every day. I know this not only because we can hear them while we’re outside, but because there is a gaping hole in the eave where they fly in-and-out constantly. Like bats or something.
Anyway, the core of my beef with these forsaken birds is mostly that they just eat—or scoop onto the ground—like all of my seed within hours of me putting it in the feeders. The rest of my beef with these birds is due to their nonstop screeching and bullying of other birds.
Now, this is why we typically by safflower seed, as Starlings don’t like it as much given its hard outer shell, which is hard for them to crack. However, two things: 1) that doesn’t always deter them, and 2) Wild Birds has been out of safflower pretty regularly this spring, so it has been hard to come by.
I bet I know why they’ve been out of it—I don’t get the sense that we’re the only ones with a Starling-shaped problem.2
So this spring it’s been Starlings all the way down and all around so far. I am hoping in the next couple of weeks I can acquire some safflower that will make them a little less interested in hanging around so much. But given that they’re always watching from the eave in the house next door, I suspect that as soon as I offer something that isn’t safflower, they’ll be over to gobble it up or scoop it onto the ground to eat later.
Our Baby Bluebirds
Without a doubt, the highlight of the spring so far has been playing host to a brood of baby Eastern Bluebirds in one of the three nesting boxes along our fence. As I write this portion of this essay—on Wednesday, May 13th—the Bluebird family has been moved out of the box for about four or five days. I am hopeful that we’ll have the same parents back for another brood soon, but it was really fun watching this first group grow.
Bluebirds and sparrows always seem to start fighting for residency in the nesting boxes along our fence as soon as the weather starts to turn warm around March or so. Historically, we’ve only had two nesting boxes along the back fence, but around the beginning of April this year we added a third back in the corner of the yard, a little distance away from the others. Both houses usually end up occupied, despite being a little bit closer than is probably recommended. However this spring only one has had any residents so far—the oldest one that was on the fence when we moved into the house a decade ago.
It was the Bluebirds who won the war for the house this time around, and they got busy quickly. It was sometime around the middle of April during one of my morning back-porch reading sessions that I first noticed a lot of back-and-forth activity around the nesting box. Apparently I had missed the birds preparing the nest, because by the time I noticed them, there were—to my surprise—already some hungry mouths waiting to be fed!
I was so excited!
Not long after I snapped that first picture, the back-and-forth feeding activity began to be accompanied by frenzied tweeting from the baby birds whenever mom or dad would arrive with some food. I remember being distracted many times while reading or working on the back porch when, seemingly out of nowhere, a bunch of small, muffled tweeting noises would happen all at once. It took a few occurrences for me to realize that it was the box of baby Bluebirds who had apparently found their voices and were clamoring to be fed upon the arrival of one of their parents.
Eventually, the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend, I went to go check on the box of Bluebirds and snagged this picture. I’m no ornithologist, but when I saw how big and crowded these babies had become, I knew they had to be fledging out soon.
Sure enough, on Mother’s Day Sunday I went to check the box again and the box was empty. It was unnerving at first. “Could they really be ready?” I wondered. “Aw man, I missed them. Will I ever see them again?” I thought next.
Ah, parenthood.
Since that Sunday, it has been hard for me to tell if the Bluebird family is hanging around except for a few signs.
First, the internet tells me that Bluebird families will tend to stick around wherever the brood was hatched and fledged out. So I have reason to believe I’ll see them about.
Second, I haven’t really been able to approach them, but a few times I have seen a handful of small birds—who could be our fledglings—all sitting together along the top of our fence in the backyard, taking turns jumping down to the ground to eat the seed the Starlings (GRRR) have knocked from the feeder to the grass. I can’t get close enough to see if these are our Bluebird brood, but they look to be about the right size, and they’re sticking together awfully close. I see them flee to one of the evergreens beyond our fence every once in a while So perhaps they’re living there.
Third, and finally, I did catch just the other day one of the Bluebird parents—theoretically—make its way back to the nest box where this brood was hatched. It looked like he or she just took a peek into the box and flew away.
Following the evacuation of the Bluebird family, I did some research and learned that it is actually good to clean out nesting boxes after a brood has left the nest because it signals that the house is open and ready to be used again. Bluebirds tend to have somewhere between one and four broods a year, so I’m hoping that these same parents use the box again to raise their next brood sometime soon!
The Bluebird family has been a highlight of the season so far. It’s been so fun to watch them, and I’m hoping for round two soon.3
The Squirrels vs. the Bluebirds
One more, short storyline to share about the Bluebirds before we move on.
Throughout the spring, as the Bluebirds were getting ready to bring their brood into the box, squirrels also became more frequent visitors to the backyard.
In the 10 years we have lived in our home, we have never really had too many squirrels, and we’re not sure why. I’ve always wondered if living so close to a massive forest has kept them away—given that, logically, my backyard would not be nearly as appealing as the forest.
But this year, we’ve had three or four squirrels hanging around our backyard every day, and until I started purchasing the spicy bird seed sometime in April, they were eating lots of my bird seed.
Given that the Bluebirds were bringing about their brood in the box closest to the bird feeder preferred by the squirrels, the Bluebirds were at war almost constantly with the squirrels. Here’s a brief video I snagged on my phone one morning.
It’s been one of my favorite storylines of the spring. It’s so funny to hear the little Blues snap their beaks at the squirrels and chase them away. I suppose the Blues think the squirrels pose a threat to the babies.
I can tell the squirrels aren’t interested in anything more than snagging some seed, but the Blues are going to be sure they don’t try to climb into the box. Go for it.
The Robins and Their Nest
As usual, we’ve had a lot of Robins this year. I’m guessing that if you live in America and you pay attention to birds in your backyard, Robins are probably one of the more common birds you see around. For all the ones we see a lot, they sure are among the prettiest.
A few mornings in late April I noticed the same Robin repeatedly collecting dead grass and other refuse from around the backyard. I’m no ornithologist, but I could surmise the bird was busy building a nest of some kind. So I decided to investigate.
It didn’t take long for me to find the Robin’s nest nestled precariously between two of the smaller tree limbs in the canopy of the largest tree in our yard. I couldn’t hear any tweeting from the nest, nor could I see any sort of occupancy, but the Robin was clearly working on it for some reason. I was nervous because I could tell that, despite the robust nest it was constructing, it wouldn’t take more than a stiff storm wind to knock it out. Its positioning between two smaller branches a good bit away from the trunk left the nest quite vulnerable to the elements.
(Don’t be fooled: those chirps you hear in the above video are not from baby Robins, but from the brood of Starlings living in the eave of the house next door—newly hatched and preparing to eat all my seed.)
Sure enough, a couple of weeks later after one of our only strong storms of the season, I found the nest lying in the grass directly below where it was in the tree. Thankfully, I didn’t find any baby birds or eggs in the vicinity, so they had either fledged without me knowing, or the eggs had not yet been laid. I suspect the latter, but it’s hard to say.
The internet tells me that Robins would likely not grieve the loss of an empty nest and would, if needed, soon start on building another—I’d like to believe that, so I will. So I’m keeping an eye out to see if they start rebuilding soon.
Also, in unrelated Robin news, I went out to get the mail just the other night and saw a fledgling Robin sitting smack in the middle of the road with its mouth wide open. Mom and Dad seemed to be taking turns bringing it food as it sat, immobile, in the middle of the road. As I walked down the driveway, I saw multiple cars barely miss hitting the bird amid rush hour neighborhood traffic—which, on our street, is no joke.
I quickly got my mail and grabbed a pair of gloves from the garage. I moved the fledgling Robin who was clearly dealing with some kind of broken wing to a bush in our landscaping. He or she was not too happy with me, chirping frequently, trying to wriggle free. I set the bird down and was unsure if it would survive the night.
The next morning, sure enough, the bird had hopped over toward our neighbors yard, still clearly unable to fly, but its parents continued to bring it food.
When I told Maggie, our six-year-old, at her bedtime that the bird would likely die soon, she asked that we pray for it, specifically, “that God would bring the bird back to life when he makes the whole world new—just like he will with me.”
Amen, sister. We can pray for all of that.
Will the Tree Swallows Move in?
Another fun development this spring was the presence of Tree Swallows. I’m sure for some reading this, Tree Swallows are common backyard tenants—this is not the case for us. I remember the first time I saw the Tree Swallows flying around the yard I thought they were either Purple Martins or Chimney Swifts, both of which I know live around us but are also not often present in our backyard. They have some similar coloring to Purple Martins and are acrobatic like Chimney Swifts—so apparently I’m not the only one who often mistakes Tree Swallows for one of these kinds.
Eventually I captured the birds’ call on my Merlin Bird ID app as Tree Swallows, which was then confirmed by my iPhone’s photo identification function after I captured a few pictures:
We added that new bird box on our fence this year, and for much of the spring a handful of Tree Swallows seemed to be interested in perhaps making a next there. For weeks I wondered, “Will the Tree Swallows finally move in?” Alas, they have not moved in. In fact, I haven’t seen them around as much the last week or so, compared to earlier this spring.
And, actually, our familiar Bluebird momma has been investigating that new bird box in the last few days—maybe she’ll move her next brood over there!
The Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks
Okay, beside the baby Blues, this is probably my favorite feature of our spring in the backyard. We had Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks for a number of weeks! They are so pretty! Here’s a nice pic I snagged of a couple at the feeder:
I had never seen these before, or even knew they existed, so when I first saw one I thought it was some kind of woodpecker given its similar coloring to woodpeckers we’ve had in the yard (more on them next).
The Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks do not stay in Middle Tennessee for much time at all. They simply migrate through here from their winter homes closer to the equator up to their summer homes in the northern part of the United States. I like to think that the three regulars we had in our yard throughout April may be heading for my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Unlikely, of course, but it’s fun to imagine.
It was a joy to feed the Grosbeaks for a few weeks in our yard. Perhaps we’ll catch them on their migratory journey in the fall. If not, maybe again next spring. Lovely looking birds.
The Woodpeckers
I think woodpeckers may be my favorite species of bird we get in the backyard each year. We usually have a few woodpeckers hanging around at all times of year, if I remember correctly. More commonly we have seen Downy Woodpeckers, but occasionally we will also have Red-Bellied Woodpeckers. This spring, we have had probably three or four regular Downy friends and I think two distinct Red-Bellied pals.
I love woodpeckers so much mostly because they’re just so funny to me—banging their faces against the trees at all hours of the day. It helps that they’re pretty, too.
My favorite woodpecker stunt this year is this one I managed to capture on camera one evening as I stood in the kitchen making dinner. Look at this goofball:
Here in late May, I haven’t seen them around as often as I did a few weeks ago, but I suspect I’ll see them again soon.
The Red-Tailed Hawk
We don’t get too many larger birds in our backyard. However I do know that we have a Red-Tailed Hawk and a Cooper’s Hawk who patrol the neighborhood with some frequency. They occasionally appear on my Merlin Bird ID sound identifier, and more rarely I’ll see them with my own eyes.
I haven’t seen the Cooper’s Hawk on anything but sound identification this spring, but I have seen the Red-Tailed Hawk with my own eyes a couple of times.
Once, I was in the shed that serves as my backyard office, and when I opened the door to leave the shed and go inside our house for something, a Red-Tailed Hawk took off from its perch atop the back of one of our patio chairs and flew across the backyard next to ours. It flew off so quickly I wasn’t able to get a picture. I barely even saw it in time.
Then, another time I looked up into the cloudless blue sky and caught a pic of it flying right over our yard, surely trying to find its next meal. I did get a picture of it this time:
I wish we had more of these larger birds around, but I’m sure they enjoy the woods and the nearby river. I still have never seen a Bald Eagle in real life, but I hear we have some in the area. One day soon!
The Bunnies
Finally, I would be remiss if I only focused on our bird and squirrel friends and did not mention our other furry visitors: the bunnies! Our backyard is a mish-mash of all kinds of greenery that serves as “grass.” We have abundant clover, a solid supply of wild strawberries, and all kinds of other grass-adjacent growths in all parts of our yard. I suspect this makes it an attractive restaurant for the rabbits.
Likewise, we have a ratty, old fence that is in dire need of replacement for a number of reasons—we just haven’t had the stomach to drop the serious cash it’s going to require to have it replaced. All around the bottom of this fence, in different parts of the yard, there are broken boards that allow for the rabbits to easily enter and exit the fence where they choose. I think that along all three lengths of fence in our yard, they probably have a solid six entrance and exit points. This is especially important because our almost-elderly goldendoodle, Rizzo, desperately wants to play with these bunnies. Every time he sees them in our yard, he whines at the back door until we let him out. Rizzo shoots out of a cannon and chases the rabbits around the yard, whining in anticipation of finally catching one.
Of course Rizzo has never caught one, and that’s quite all right with us. But it is a hoot watching him chase them around the yard until they finally decide to scoot out one of the broken boards along the bottom of the fence.
I suspect the rabbits live in or around the culvert pipe beyond the bounds of our fence, as that would likely be the safest place for them that would allow them to frequent our yard as often as they do. But I haven’t gone looking for them. For now, we’ll just keep our yard available for their feasting.
Thanks for Coming Along!
This concludes my longer-than-planned public journal of what I’ve been enjoying in our backyard this spring. If you’ve managed to make it this far, thanks for reading! I hope that my recollection, pictures, and notes brought you even some small fraction of joy this season has been for me.
Have a great summer!
As of last year the vendors had exponentially increased. I don’t mind, but I do wonder if all the added hustle and bustle hinders the quiet required for hummingbird capture and banding.
Not to mention Grackles are pests in all the same ways that Starlings are, and Grackles also don’t like safflower. So it works as a repellant for both of these groups. Man I gotta find some safflower…
On the morning of publishing this essay, Tuesday, May 26, a family of Carolina Chickadees and a Bluebird parent are fighting over one of the fence-mounted nesting boxes. Will be interesting to see who gets settled in!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your spring journal! Bluebirds are my favorite bird. I'm ok with the squirrel in my yard as long as it continues to eat off the ground or at the corn cake I put out for it.