Backyard birds

At 6:30 on a weekend morning I hear a bang, bang bang several times on something outside. It woke up hubby and myself. Hubby says half asleep "What was that?" I said "It sound like a woodpeck trying to drill on the metal drainpipe." He said "No way". I got out of bed and peaked out the window. Sitting on a branch, staring at the drainpipe was a downy woodpecker. I went and got my camera and took a couple of shots throught the bedroom window. He must have tried to bang on the drainpipe and realized it was metal.

Our neighborhood dove was trying to take a bath in our dried up boat cover. When it rains we get a little puddle in the front of the cover. For several days we've had doves taking baths there but then it dried up. I told hubby to run outside and spray the boat cover with the hose so the dove could get wet. He said "I'm not getting up off the couch to spray the hose so a dove can take a bath." I guess a trip to Home Depot for a real birdbath is in our near future.

A family of house sparrows has been hanging our the boat dock. I wonder if these were the same ones that were born here earlier this spring here.

 

All of the above pictures where taken through the bedroom window. If I walk outside the house sparrows fly off and hide in my neighbor's bushes. They do that when a hawk stops by as well. I'm still waiting for hubby to build me a nice air conditioned blind to put in the backyard.

Baby sparrows in the backyard.

Female house sparrow sitting on our dock.

The male in a nearby tree.

The tiny nest in the cavity of our boat lift.

Dad feeding the babies.

One of the babies looking out.

More food.

We had a house sparrow family living in our dock. I should call them dock sparrows. I say had because I took these 2 weekends ago and by the middle of the week, the babies were fledging and gone. I still see them flying around the grapefruit tree and staying close to the nest. All of the above were taken through the sliding glass door and screened in porch. Any time I tried to go outside to take pictures, the parents fled and the babies hid in the back of the silver box that their nest was in. I tried sneaking out the side door and going around and peeking out the side of the house and they still fled. I told my husband he needed to build me a bird blind in the backyard. He said "Yea, I want to see you sit in a wooden box in 90 degree weather." So, the living room became my blind. The babies were extremely loud for a couple of weekends. They would start screaming outside our bedroom window at 6:30am on the weekend. They are pretty cute though with those bright yellow beaks.