Autumn Is Knocking On The Door

From our walk today there is further evidence of the changing of the seasons.

 

Busy bumble bees, migratory songbirds winging their way south and mast crops in the woods.

 

 

Acorns

 

 

Walnuts

 

 

Bumble bees on Canada Goldenrod

 

 

Blue birds built the first nest.  After their brood fledged some house wrens moved in and did the same.  Nest box is doing double duty this season for the migratory songbirds. 

Report From the Oriole Ranch

Adult male orioles are incredibly early migrators which would explain why I haven’t spotted one in more than three weeks. 

They’ve left the females and fledglings behind for a few weeks to finish growing and fueling up. 

Anyway,  earlier this week I spotted a couple of females (or fledglings) eyeing-up an empty feeder. The feeders are empty on account of yellow jackets and other hornets. Besides, with wild berries ripening and insect populations peaking visitors to the feeders have slowed. 

I asked someone who knows more about this than me and I’m told that here in Northeast Wisconsin, the local breeding Baltimore Orioles are officially concluding their season right now, and the birds I am seeing are likely preparing to leave this week.

I think they're gone!

 

Best practice is to leave only small amounts of jelly out to avoid spoilage and keep the birdbaths clean and fresh. 

I should expect some Canadian oriole stragglers passing but to expect warblers and other Neotropical migrants for a while. 

 

We're leaving the welcome mat out for a while.

 

Selected photos were taken over the last seven days. 

 

Click on image for a closer look 

 

Where's my grape jelly?

 

Adult and fledgling

A trio!  Which one is the adult?

Fledgling doing the "fledgling dance" for mom

House finch and oriole

 

Oops From The Oriole Ranch

The orioles are making a liar out of me.  Watching the news last evening I spotted a juvenile on the feeder just outside on the feeder.

The bird cam is still on the porch and two of the three jelly feeders were empty.  Empty feeders do not necessarily imply orioles feed at them as other birds like grape jelly.  Nevertheless, I swapped-out the memory card to check on who's been visiting.

And from yesterday afternoon there was an oriole and a house finch and a solo female oriole. 

 

Final Update From The Oriole Ranch

I’ve been checking the bird cam on the porch and for the last several days I haven’t gotten an oriole photo. 

 

Neither of us has spotted any in the yard. 

 

I’ll keep the camera out for a while longer just to be sure; but if my diary is to be believed the orioles have departed. They’re winging their way south already for their wintering grounds in Mexico, Central and South America. 

 

One of the last photos was July 23

 

 

They arrived May 7 and left, on or about, July 25. 

 

Last to arrive - first to depart. 

 

Anecdotally, 2026 has been a bumper year for house finches and Monarch butterflies….

 

 

Update From The Oriole Ranch

This past week the Orioles really began hammering the feeders.  In four days I've gone thru two 30 oz. Jars of grape jelly and a navel orange.  As of last Monday we had not spotted any fledglings.

That changed on Tuesday with the appearance of the Graduating Class of 2026 having fledged the nest to come to the feeders. 

They still haven’t completely figured-out how to feed themselves so it is hilarious to observe the youngsters alight and then chatter and whine for an adult to feed them.

They’ll get the hang of it before too long.

Here are some photos from Thursday courtesy of the Oriole Cam on the porch…..

 

Porch Birds

From the porch a couple of bird photos.

This one taken with a iPhone 14 Pro of a male house finch (left) and brown-headed cowbird (right) copping some seed at a tube feeder in the front yard.

And a trail camera photo of a female house finch indulging her sweet tooth with some grape jelly at the "oriole" feeder.  Which is also universally visited by all manner of other birds.

Be sure to come back periodically for more bird photos that are posted from time-to-time. 

I really need to spring for a good digital camera.  It would amp-up my distance shots of wildlife and nighttime photography.  If anyone has a suggestion leave a message.  You probably know how to find me.  

Update From The Oriole Ranch

When the orioles first arrived activity on the feeders was brisk with the migrators gorging on fruit and grape jelly. 

 

Business recently has been quiet. The orioles haven’t entirely disappeared - but their feeding habits have switched to abundant high protein insects and insect larvae as they rear their young high in the tree canopy. 

 

Predictably, by July the adults will return with their fledglings to introduce them to the decadence of grape jelly and oranges. 

 

This is always a hoot because the fledglings will find a perch and beg mom or dad to feed them. By the time they’ve figured out how to feed themselves the orioles beat it out of dodge to wing their way to their wintering grounds.

 

Last to arrive and first to depart. 

 

In the interim, The indigo buntings continue to come around to indulge their sweet tooth and partake of the thistle seed in the two finch feeders and ordinary wild bird seed along with most everyone else.

 

As a four year-old visitor recently put it:  What is the blue canary bird called? 

 

 

The Oriole Ranch

They're back; among the last to arrive and the first to depart. 

Some of the most colorful birds that visit Wisconsin backyards and birdfeeders during the warmer months put in serious migration miles.

Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks and indigo buntings all migrate far south. Birds may travel as far as 3,000 miles – sometimes over long expanses of ocean to return to their breeding habitat.

When you live halfway between the equator and the North Pole these birds have only begun to arrive in the last week.

To help migrating birds, turn off outdoor lights and close curtains at night and reduce window collisions with external screens and marker decals on the glass.

And be sure to check back for periodic updates; and the appearance of other migratory species... 

Male Baltimore oriole

Orchard oriole sparring with a Baltimore

A couple of female Baltimores

Indigo bunting

Male orchard (left) female orchard (right) 

Red-bellied woodpecker - female is characterized by a gray crown and red nape 

The help... 

 

 

The Return Of The Oriole Cam

Last Monday I could’ve sworn I spied an orchard oriole. 

And on Tuesday morning the Missus spotted three male Orioles quarreling over the humming bird feed she had recently deployed.

I spotted some rose-breasted grosbeaks in the yard along with the white-crowned sparrows passing-thru on their way to Canada.  Consequently, we put out three additional feeders and I moved the rickety-old trail camera previously used to monitor the peanut feeder to a post on the west side of the porch. 

The oriole cam has been deployed.  

 

 

And a couple of the first photos uploaded yesterday....

 

 

 

The Bluebird Of Happiness

Among the regular harbingers of spring is the return of the Redwing Blackbird, the American robin and the eastern bluebird.  One of our favorites is the bluebird and some have suggested they've been seemingly scarcer the past couple of years; we have two confirmed next boxes occupied by this species. 

The notion of the bluebird of happiness has its roots in French folklore and comes from the delightful feeling associated with the sighting of one of these birds with the faded rusty breast, white belly and blue back and tail. They're a flash of color in an otherwise brown and dreary springtime world. They’re fond of perching on the top of a post, tree or garden rake leaning on the fence and surveying their domain.  

WI.DNR.Gov

 

Meet Sialia sialis - the Eastern bluebird.  These are cavity-nesting birds and only a couple of human generations ago their numbers were in serious decline in this country as a consequence of limited nesting habitat.  They’re more common nowadays because us people have mobilized in the face of that decline and assembled and installed nest boxes for them. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of similarly-minded bird enthusiasts and you get the drift.  More cavities – more birds.  

 

 

Most of the time house wrens and tree sparrows nest in our boxes which is just fine.  They make for good tenants.  When I was out turkey hunting at the end of last month I spotted a pair of birds checking-out the nest box above.  

 

Within a week they decided to take-up housekeeping and constructed a nest.

 

 

Then earlier this week I was out installing a nest box that needed a minor repair and figured I check on my feathered friends for a progress report.

 

So far, so good.

 

We’re about to become grandparents again.   

An interesting factoid about the eastern bluebird is that the young of the first brood assist in raising the young of the second brood.   

 

Good parenting skills the bluebird has. 

 

About Those Signs Of Spring

Spoke too soon about springtime.

When you live half-way between the equator and the North Pole the month of March can throw you a curve ball from time to time.

Woke-up today to this.

Business has been brisk at the bird feeders all day with the arrival of more of the summertime species in the past week.  So doggo and I went out to top them-off and deployed an additional two suet feeders.

Presently it looks like there is 8 to 10 inches of snow on the level, with another 18 to 20 in the next twenty four hours.  We got a regular nor'easter on our hands with winds coming off the lake gusting to 40 miles per hour.

Snug here with a nonstop fire in the wood burner since last evening.  We even had bacon with breakfast; because, there's a blizzard going on.

No power outages (yet).

Everything is closed except the local watering hole  Come to think about it the only way to get there is by snowmobile.....  

 

Backyard Birding

On the recommendation of my pal, Braumeister, at the start of last  month I hung the contraption you see below from a branch on a red maple in our yard.  It is a bird feeder that you fill with peanuts.  Peanuts in the shell; raw and unsalted.   

I bought a big bag of nuts at a local bird food joint.  And while they're clearly labeled:  NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION I suppose if I tried one I don't think it would kill me.  But you never know.  

It took a few days for the local birds to figure-out what it's for and now I'm restocking it almost twice a week.  

In any event the trail camera I installed to monitor who might like peanuts needed to be rearranged.  It needed to have its back to the sun so that subjects were appropriately lit.  It took a couple of tries to get the focal length correct.  Trim some branches and there was the opportunity cost of losing several days of potential photos as a consequence of an improperly-formatted SD card.  Mind you, the camera is old too.  Originally-deployed during COVID in 2020 it is quite frail and could fail catastrophically just about any time.  Nevertheless, being the cheap SOB that I am I intend to squeeze every last gigabyte of digital imagery out of this old Moultrie device as I can.

So, here's an update

Yours-truly wrangling and wrassling the gizmo one of countless times to get it situated 

Blue jay

White-breasted nuthatch

Red-breasted nuthatch

Pileated woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

Black-capped chickadee

And a hairy woodpecker

Altogether a nice collection of some of the year-round bird residents.  The migrators are beginning to arrive so it will be interesting to note if any of them like peanuts.

Stay-tuned....