Hello, tweets.

The Mourning Dove I reported two days ago is still in our yard. I flushed it from the same spot yesterday, and today it is out in the open under one of the feeders. Seeds are spilled from all the feeders, satisfying ground feeders and squirrels (and rats at night) alike. It is a juvenile, with a surprisingly rounded tail, graduated but distinctly less pointed than that of the adults. Like a lot of juvenile birds, it seems a little puzzled by what life has to offer, and right now it has a wing spread out in the sun, apparently basking. Maybe it does know what it's doing.

I saw it yesterday because I went out in the yard to photograph a sapsucker that was at our sapsucker birch. I assumed it would be a Red-breasted, but in fact it was a Red-breasted x Red-naped hybrid, just about right in the middle between the two species. Did the Red-naped from last spring hang around the area and breed with a local Red-breasted, producing this offspring, or is it another bird that came down from the Cascades and is migrating through or wintering? Only Mother Nature knows.

Dennis
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net