S did not have such a good experience with them. He went into the basement to get the hose, and the mama bird happened to be in the nest at the time. She swooped at him and he nearly jumped out of his pants. "That bird is really smart," he said. "She knows I'm one bad startle away from a massive coronary."I still don't know what kind of birds these are, and I probably never will unless someone clues me in. (You could lie to me and I'd probably believe you.) I'd like to learn more about birds, but I also still want to learn Spanish and French, gardening, quilting, cooking, photography and parallel parking. I'm just not sure I have the room in my brain for avian identification, you know?
What kind of birds are these? Oh, that's easy. They're "baby" birds. :-) Aren't I so helpful?
ReplyDeletewhat color where the eggs? and what does mama bird look like?
ReplyDeleteKatie, I haven't gotten a very good look at the mama -- I've only seen her when she was swooping at me, and I was trying to dodge her! She's brown and a bird... sadly that's about the best I can do for a description. (Which is just as helpful as Jenny's :-p)
ReplyDeleteI know that sometimes birds can be ID'd by their nests -- it's very tangly with sticks, leaves and moss.
The eggs are small, kinda off-white with reddish brown speckles. Here is a somewhat blurry picture of them and the nest:
http://thirtyeight20.blogspot.com/2010/04/basement-surprise.html
I will be infinitely impressed if you can identify them!
the only bird i know by egg is a robin, but they're very distinctive (and sounds like these are not robins). i know most of the birds i see around my neighborhood, but it's pretty likely that the birds i see in wisconsin are not the same birds you see in maryland. =)
ReplyDeleteSo sweet!
ReplyDeleteJanie and I have a bird book. If you can get her picture, we may be able to ID her for ya.
ReplyDeleteI haven't commented very much lately, but still read when I can (new job). The birdies story reminds me of something similar. We lived in Iowa (a suburban neighborhood). We spent a ton of money (what was to us a ton) to build a 16 x 40 ft cedar deck on the back of the house. I designed the deck so that it would extend outward about 3 feet from the glass doors, so that I could put shrubs and shade flowers in between. Well guess who liked the shrubs? It was the birds. And one particular robin hatched a nest there and went on the warpath. Here we were with out beautiful new cedar deck and if we walked out onto it, a bird with dive bomb the side of our head. We called the local bird guy (seriously, there is such a guy in Davenport, Iowa)and he pretty much cussed me out for 30 minutes accusing me of wanting to kill a bird. About 2 days later, my husband went out onto the deck with his coffee around 6 in the morning, and starting getting dive-bombed. He said, "This is it. It's warfare." So he got a tennis racket out and went out to the yard to play Michael the Archangel. He had on nothing but a bathrobe, and it was hilarious. My neighbor called me up and said "Do you know Bob is out in the yard swinging a tennis racket around in his bathrobe?" I just said, "Uh-huh." The baby birdies eventually grew up and left. They kept us off our deck for about 4 weeks. But the scene of my husband in the bathrobe with the tennis racket flailing about exposing himself is priceless. If only I would have video. (But that wouldn't be fair would it?)
ReplyDeleteAnna, I have missed you! Thanks for commenting and giving me the update.
ReplyDeleteAnd that bird story... hilarious. I can picture the entire thing, including the odd looks from the neighbor. It's like a movie. I'd have probably scooped up the bird and its nest very carefully, and deposited them squarely on the Davenport Bird Guy's front porch.
Maybe I can get S to write a guest post about the time he was in the bathroom "crunching some numbers" as he likes to say, and a bird flew out from behind the shower curtain. (This was earlier in the renovation when things weren't well sealed.) I wasn't home at the time, but returned to find various household items slung all over the house, where he'd thrown them at the bird in attempt to knock it unconscious! I, too, wish that had been caught on film.