The Kudzu Files

It’s been an unusual winter in central Mississippi, because for the first time in what seems like years, we’ve had winter. Some recent winters have seen only a few nights where temperatures got below freezing - which makes for a bumper crop of bugs the next spring. But we saw snow - very [...]

It’s one of those weird things that happens. This morning, I wondered where the finches were. Every January for years, one of my favorite things is to watch the finches at my feeders (I live an exciting life). This year, I’d seen none, even though I’d been at home during the day [...]

I’ve seen none this year. Zero. My feeders have always been crowded by this time. No goldfinches, no house finches, no purple finches. Where are my finches?

I was looking back through some pictures I took last October, and found this one, of a grumpy-looking hummingbird at one of my feeders:

I suspect he’s in a warmer place right now.

I went to a different stretch of beach late this afternoon, an area where I’ve been seeing lots of birds. On and around the remains of a couple of piers ruined by Katrina, I found a large group of pelicans, seagulls, sandpipers. Pelicans, it would seem, are as serene as gulls are raucous. [...]

These little guys are all over my yard right now. I’ve seen at least five or six - there could be more, it’s hard to count them. And this one, at least, isn’t a “guy”, it’s a female Ruby-throated. Click on the pictures to see them larger.

I was in the pool Saturday afternoon, cooling off after mowing.  At one end I’ve planted crepe myrtles, altheas, and cannas, and since that’s the deeper end, I tend to hang around there when I’m just hanging around in the pool.  And while hanging around there Saturday afternoon, I noticed a hummingbird working the cannas.  [...]

While I was working in the yard today, I noticed a small commotion by my workshop. A closer look revealed a family of Carolina wrens getting ready for their first flight; indeed, while I was watching the first two chicks made short hops onto the fence:

And all the while, the mother (or maybe father) [...]

I dropped by my mother’s house this evening to take a picture of something for her, and as I was preparing to leave, I looked out her window just in time to see this hummingbird at her feeder. I didn’t have time to do anything more than turn and shoot, basically.