Turkey vultures on clean-up duty

Yes, a sad sight, but they do clean up. They are huge creatures. I realized what they were after, when I spotted them on the fence.

It looks like a marmalade cat was smucked by a car. Drivers go pretty quickly on the way from Kingston to Ottawa. We've lost 2 cats to this.

Here is a birding idea...

The birds have been very busy. The twittering of the Goldfinches have been delightful. This one is looking a bit more yellow, getting dressed for the summer season.
We've several pairs of Purple finches visiting the feeders, as well.




Mourning doves have been frequent fliers, as are the red-wings and the grackles!

I spotted a Turkey vulture Sunday. First one this year!

easily spotted by the white beak

turkey vulture archive photo

Cedar waxwing spring 2015

I saw that Eileen had put out some dog fur for the birds for nesting materials. What a good idea! I know that last year, I snapped the Waxwing grabbing some burlap string from the Horse chestnut tree.

I collected the fur from the cats, and put it out in a basket. The first one was a bit of a failure!
The enclosed suet feeder is better!


Hubby went out to fill the feeder for me. I asked him to put some of the fur in Fat Head's mouth, just for fun! That didn't last long. The woodpecker decided that there was still some suet left in the back of Fat Head's mouth and she whipped that out.



Cats are happy to be outdoors. We've had our first bird kills of the year: last week the cats got two chickadees. Fortunately, we have a sturdy population of chickadees.


Primrose are peeking through the leaves!

Bird populations have exploded!

First, our rain.. 40 mm over a couple of days. Hard to believe! The birds don't mind, but my goldfish pond looks tragic as I try to rebuild it...I have a major design flaw, which I must sort out. I'm having to let the rain drain away, since the pond isn't done. Normally, I refill it with rain water from my rain barrel.


But back to the birds... phoebe, sparrows, junco, purple finch, robin's nest (I think!), turkey vulture, grackle, and red-winged blackbird.

Hooray for spring migration.