Friday, June 12, 2009

Springtime is for babies

The kids have found multiple broken eggshells in our yard from the springtime babies.  A book helped us determine that we think most of them were Mourning Doves (just white).  But we have seen a few babies around.  In this picture from left to right an adult Dove, a juvenile cardinal standing on the divider, a juvenile dove behind a parent? and a male cardinal.  There was another juvenile cardinal and a juvenile dove around but this picture showed them all.  It was so much fun to just observe them for a while.  The male cardinal scolded his little ones away a few times.  Maybe he's not the dad?  Maybe they were doing something wrong?  Who knows?  The doves were calm as they always are.  The picture below is a better profile picture of this cardinal.  He has a crest.  His beak hasn't changed to orange yet (even the brown female cardinals have a bright orange beak).  You can kind of see the reddish tint in his tail, but you had to look really well.  We had 3 of these guys around our house for about a week but I think they've found a new home or they're mad our birdfeeder is empty for the season.  Gotta get them used to not having to rely on us anymore.  This house has sure been a fun house with lots of exciting nature finds.
Speaking of nature finds, check out this really cool spider.  A spider with a shell?  It's called a spiny Orb-weaver.  Orb-weavers usually make gorgeous webs.

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