good-times-rollin: baby birds

Corona de Tucson

May 20, 2023

It's always nice to come home. It doesn't matter if it's a trip across town or miles away. It doesn't matter if it's a few hours, days, weeks or months...home is nice. Saturday was spent packing up the bus in Cave Creek, traveling, settling in at home, and doing laundry. A big part of settling in at home is feeding the birds and filling the birdbath. Everything else can wait ! We weren't the only ones glad we were home...

The new little Desert Willow trees (that we purchased for $15.00 each from Tucson Electric) bloomed while we were gone.

It's a tiny little tree with lots of promise. Joe says we need to move it and get a big one to enjoy now.

I am so happy...more and more birds are perching in the Bottlebrush tree.

And some birds use it for hiding and camouflage...

Monday, we were up early and headed to Tucson for Joe's dermatology visit. We are waiting on three biopsies...fingers crossed. Tuesday we were up early and headed to Green Valley for Jack's vet appointment. He is such a big boy sometimes...riding in the backseat all by himself.

He was a bit anxious waiting his turn to see Dr. Huang. It's interesting that each of the pups has their own personality. But the one thing they all have in common is that when they feel nervous/anxious...they want their daddy !

Jack's heart stress numbers have increased significantly since last taken April 12. He began heart medicine a month ago so these results are not what we were hoping for. He is due for a CAT on the 27th to figure out what is next.

This is such a wonderful time of year to enjoy the patio...we have been sitting a lot ! The weather is so nice in the morning and late afternoon. And this is the time of year we begin to see baby birds. One morning we watched a dad Gila teach his young son how to eat oranges. Dad would sit on the fence with a mouth full of orange...while the young son sat on the block column.

After a lot of luring and patience by the dad...both flying away and returning many times...the young Gila enjoyed his first taste of orange.

And by the end of the day, the young Gila was on the feeder.

Suet was on the menu for the young Gila the next morning and the lessons began again.

The House Finches have also been busy teaching life lessons as well...

I happen to look up at just the right time to see a visitor we don't have very often. Vermillion Flycatchers eat insects...mostly bees...so they don't come to the feeders. We were happy to see him perch and take a quick look around before flying away.

He is a small bird measuring between 5 - 5.5 inches from head to tip of tail.

We have enjoyed our morning walks this week. We did two walks at sunrise...yep, my favorite time of day ! The early morning glow always adds an extra bounce to my step.

On Tuesday's walk as we rounded the corner to head home, we saw a mama javelin with her three little ones. They weren't all together for a group shot, but I did manage a not so good photo of one of them with my phone.

Thursday morning we were out with coffee in hand before the sun came up.

We enjoyed clouds all day and finally late afternoon it started to rain and it rained all night...it was wonderful !

I love the feel and the smell of fresh air in the morning when we have had a good rain during the night.

This morning I was looking out the kitchen window. I was surprised to see a stray dog walking down the sidewalk. It stopped and looked around, made a right turn and headed towards the access to the cart path. I was just about to call Joe when I realized it wasn't a stray dog, it was a coyote. He turned right on the cart path...by that time I had camera in hand and was on the patio...we made eye contact before he wandered on and took one last glance my way.