Summer Birding and BirdCam

Summer is here! It is hot and dry to begin the summer months. The birds are eating a lot at the feeders these days. It must be harder to find food with many of the plants being dead. I have seen fledgling Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays and Red-bellied Woodpeckers at the feeders so far this year. There is a pair of Carolina Wrens with a nest in a box I built for my aunt on her carport. The Eastern Bluebirds are on their second brood and the eggs should hatch on 6/5. The mosquitoes are thick down in the woods making walking around to see what birds are around nesting uncomfortable. Any insect repellent is sweated off within a few minutes! So, I let my BirdCam do the birdwatching for me. Water is hard to come by these days, so my birdbaths are extremely popular! I have to fill the one down in the woods nearly every day due to evaporation and the birds splashing it out of the bath when they are bathing. I've got a dripper on the one in my backyard and it stays full.

I have had my BirdCam for about a year now. I have really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. So far I have photographed 51 different species of birds with it. I just recently tried the video function on it and have been pleased with the results. There have been two new property birds that I probably never would have seen had it not been for my BirdCam. Just after I got it in June 2010, a juvenile Hairy Woodpecker showed up at my feeders. This winter a female Purple Finch showed up with the American Goldfinches at the feeders in the woods. I was able to "see" a few spring migrants that I missed when I was out birding, but they came to my birdbath where I had my BirdCam set up - Golden-winged Warbler, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Scarlet Tanager and Wood Thrush. I'm hoping that the weather patterns are more normal next spring and we don't have the strong south winds we had this year so more of the migrants drop in as they complete their flight across the Gulf of Mexico. I am going to put the BirdCam on the bluebird house on Sunday morning to see if I can get some pictures of the adults taking the eggshells out of the nest, and then I'll put it on it again the day the chicks are supposed to fledge and hopefully get some video of them leaving the nest.