It sounds like you have a beautiful assortment of American Native birds. I am so tired of these English Sparrows and Starlings here at my house (they murder other birds and take their nests). The only bird that I've seen not intimidated by them is the occasional cardinal.

Hubs and I watched this morning as a large soaring hawk was being attacked by three small birds. I guess the hawk got somebirdies baby.

Nature is so precisely expressed by the ROSE. It is so beautiful to observe but the THORNS are always lurking.

susiethinkssheisaphilosopher

Sounds like what happened around here last spring. Somehow a baby sparrow managed to get into my duaghter's bedroom under her bed. It took us about 24 hours to locate it and to take it outside. We set it on the ground under the nest that we thought it had come from and went inside to see what happened. Within about 5 minutes we had thousands of birds in our backyard. After a short time we saw two of the birds pick up the baby by it's legs and carry it upside down up into the nest. After that the yard cleared out and things got quiet again. It was a wonderful experience that my kids and I will never forget.

Love that story, Marlene! We have sponsored bluebird houses for about 25 years, and they are the most remarkable birds.

Here's a funny story that happened to us, a baby wren had fallen on the ground at our former home, and one of our kids thought it was a baby bluebird, and they put it into the bluebird nest. So later that day when I checked on the baby bluebirds (we had a top that lifted on the birdhouse) that UGLY baby wren stuck out like a sore thumb .... big yellow beak .... I didn't know what the heck was going on.

When I went in the house and was talking about how this wren was in the nest with the bluebirds, the kids told me the story of how they tried to keep me from knowing that a baby "bluebird" (not lol) was in such danger lol .... kids .... you probably would have had to be there to realize how ridiculous that wren looked among the other baby bluebirds but they thought they was saving a bluebird :-)

We had 5 also, they fledged a couple weeks ago. My KS and I got to see 1 out of all of them. Mom seen about all of them...I told her "I can sit here and watch for an hr and nothing, but as soon as my backs turned out they come"...Isn't that the way...

Several years ago I found a baby bird in the middle of the yard with no place to hide. I got our rabbit Snoopy in the house. I watched from patio but no birds seemed to be interested in it & it was hot so I thought I better do something as poor thing was shaking. I got a chair & put over it & filled a little saucer with water, pulled some long grass I hadn't trimmed to make it more hidden, dug up couple of worms & laid on little piece of wood & babysat from patio, kids babysat then until bedtime & in morning it was gone so guess parents were somewhere. Another time I spotted a strange looking brightly colored bird. Very tame but seemed like something wrong with it. Bird people agreed to come out but I had to go & buy 1 lb of ground sirloin right away & they were on their way. I did but this little hawk was about the size of a parakeet so how much sirloin could he eat? Bird ate a piece size of a pea & guy put it in a cage & took off with the bird & the meat!!Bet the guy had some nice burgers for supper!! Jan

GReat stories.
Its been so windy here we've been finding eggs on the ground. I ran out before I let the cats out to make sure there weren't any babies thrown from the nests but didn't find any.
kathy

We've had two nests of 4 fledge so far and today when I checked the boxes, I found they're reusing one of the nests already and it has 5 eggs in it. It is amazing how other birds come to their defense. Here it is the tree swallows. When the baby blues are fledging there is usually an abundance of tree swallows around the boxes and they will defend them fiercely.

Arlene

Tonight I went to my favorite Chinese restaurant. It's on a very busy street and shares a parking lot with an Applebees. There isn't any water in sight. So why did a duck have her ducklings in the planted island in the parking lot? Someone was walking their dog and he happened upon the nest. There was lots of squacking until the lady was able to pull the golden retriever away. I noticed the mama duck wandering off, I'm assuming to divert attention from her babies. Like I said, not a body of water, not even a puddle, in sight! I suppose that means there aren't any racoons and coyotes either.