earlier today i was entertained by a large flock of

[flowerbug]

purple martins flying around eating bugs. i'd not ever seen so many fly around here at one time. in the past i've seen perhaps a dozen at the most, this must have been an entire condo's worth of about 30. so much fun.

i could have watched them for quite a long time but i had things to do, but i still managed to make a 20 minute procrastination out of it...

 

[baymule]

Sometimes you just gotta stop and watch the wonders of Nature.

 

[Carol Dee]

What a delight , lucky you.

 

[Zeedman]

purple martins flying around eating bugs. i'd not ever seen so many fly around here at one time. in the past i've seen perhaps a dozen at the most, this must have been an entire condo's worth of about 30. so much fun.

i could have watched them for quite a long time but i had things to do, but i still managed to make a 20 minute procrastination out of it...

I love watching those birds swoop & pirouette. Growing up, my uncle (whose garden looked remarkably like mine, go figure) had a purple martin hotel perched atop a pole, in the center of his garden. He swore by their effectiveness in controlling harmful insects. I've often considered erecting a similar "condo", to attract the martins to my yard.

But considering my Uncle's martins also dive-bombed me whenever I approached his garden, I would locate them some distance away. Hopefully the resident hawks wouldn't scare them off, or eat them.

 

[flowerbug]

I love watching those birds swoop & pirouette. Growing up, my uncle (whose garden looked remarkably like mine, go figure) had a purple martin hotel perched atop a pole, in the center of his garden. He swore by their effectiveness in controlling harmful insects. I've often considered erecting a similar "condo", to attract the martins to my yard.

But considering my Uncle's martins also dive-bombed me whenever I approached his garden, I would locate them some distance away. Hopefully the resident hawks wouldn't scare them off, or eat them.

i've never had a problem with them dive-bombing me, but we don't have a pole/motel for them here. once in a while in the past they've used the ledge above my patio door as a resting place when feeding but i think that they like it when the breeze is from a certain direction. plus i didn't think this was a local tribe that they'd even know about it.

we have a lot of hawks too around.

we also have a getting larger flock of mourning doves which i'm glad to have around. plenty of seeds for them to eat. the other day i was walking out to the garden and a parent and baby were near the path to the garden. i looked at them, they looked at me, i said hello but neither of them flew away. they know i won't do anything to them. i'm surprised the hawks or the semi-feral kitty don't get them more often.

 

[digitS']

Mourning doves or ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_collared_dove

When they first arrived here, just a few years ago, I thought that some of the thinking that I came across on the internet might be true -- that they could live near Mourning doves without displacing them. There were never many of those birds here but I have not been able to identify a Mourning dove for a couple of years.

Audubon map shows this location on the northern border of year around range, although in the Mourning dove's breeding range. Still, it's the Eurasian collared dove that is everywhere in the neighborhoods these days

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

i've not seen the collared doves here yet. maybe it is too rural here for them...

 

[digitS']

Just thinking how I have seen that invasive dove miles from the nearest small town, hanging out along railroads with the pigeons, waiting for grain to shake through cracks in the railcars. Of course, there are thousands of acres of grain all around them but what shows up along the tracks has been properly harvested and stored.

You might think that would put pressure on the pigeon population but I see a tremendous number at this time of year, as usual.

From my little bit of reading, it looks like the Mourning dove has a very large range and there may be little reason to be worried about them. I guess, we are still learning where the Collared dove can live and prosper in N. America. It is a nonmigratory bird so those doves have taken decades to arrive here. I hope it's the pigeon that they can cause trouble for rather than native birds. Or, since humans have made so many environmental changes, maybe we can all fit in.

Steve

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

never seen a purple martin. had to go look it up.

 

[ducks4you]

We had an invasion of dragonflies recently in the evening.