Juveniles

Guest post by Lydia

During the summer we see many different sorts of juvenile birds around. It is interesting to watch how they behave and see how different they look from their parents:

One kind of juvenile we see a lot is the bluebird. We had a pair of bluebirds nesting quite late in one of our nest boxes. One day we saw their babies on our deck looking much younger than the other bluebirds around. They had blue backs and were speckled all over their breasts which weren't orange but white. The juvenile bluebirds also seem to have white around their eyes. When we first saw them they would all perch in a row on our deck railing and their father would feed them. Every time he flew to them with food they would all crowd towards him chattering. When just one baby was alone it would crouch on its perch and flutter its wings frantically whenever it saw its parent coming.

 

 Now the babies can catch their own food, and I saw one looking quite strange because they are beginning to have more orange. This one had a patch of orange on either side of his speckled belly:

Quite some time ago the robins in the nest under our deck fledged. We saw one of them which was quite speckley and it couldn't fly very well. I got rather close to it once when it was sitting in the grass before it flew away. Other times we saw it flying crookedly around and crash landing into trees.

One time it landed on a high windowsill which disturbed its mother as she kept trying unsuccessfully to perch next to it:

 

Another interesting juvenile is the cowbird. We were surprised to see a very small chipping sparrow feeding a cowbird chick twice her size! Later in the summer the older male juveniles have very strange coloring: black and brown patches all over.

 

The juvenile red-bellied woodpecker is grayer than the adults, and instead of its head being red it is a dull pink. The red belly likes to squawk quite loudly whenever it comes to our feeders and its call is quite different from the adults.

It's fun to watch juvenile woodpeckers try to figure out how to eat from the suet feeder:

     

The eastern phoebe is a very sweet little juvenile:

It sits on our deck and chirps. The juvenile is more grayish and fluffy and its beak is bigger and more yellow than the older phoebes. Its call is also not as clear - it has a more chirping sound so we can tell when it is around.

We also watched a family of two eastern kingbirds and their three fledglings.

The adults and juveniles looked about the same but the young were being fed. I watched one of them be given an insect and then its sibling came up and snatched it. The two birds scuffled with each other until the first bird got it back and gobbled it up.

One day I heard something screaming in the woods. It turned out to be one of the two juvenile red tailed hawks. It was sitting on a telephone pole eating what looked like a snake. In between taking bites it would look around screaming constantly. Then it would stamp on its prey and scream some more. I don't think it liked its dinner.

The hawks were always screaming and the parents didn't like it. Whenever a juvenile came and screamed next to one of its parents the older bird would fly off to a quieter perch.

The juvenile red tails didn't have red tails at all. Their tails were brown with black stripes. There backs were dark brown and they had brown streaks across their bellies. Above the band of streaks was pale yellow, and below was whitish. Sometimes the young hawks were so fluffy they looked bigger then their parents and they did all sorts of funny things.

One of them tried to catch a huge ground hog but it wasn't sure how to do it. After one try it landed on the ground and looked around confusedly, then it swooped over the groundhog with its talons out, but it must have decided it was too big to catch. The hawk then sat on a branch and watched as its would-be prey waddled off. Eventually it gave up and flew away, screaming of course.

I also watched a hawk investigating a power tower. It walked carefully around the pole on a narrow ledge, squeezing past a wire and pecking at things. It also tried out several places to perch. The hawks were around for a long time and were probably my favorite juveniles. However, all of them are fascinating to watch.

Comments

[susan]

Lydia,
This is a very informative post. I had my daughter read it before she went out to do her bird watching. We both hope to read more from you in the future.
Susan

[Theresa in Alberta]

what a very interesting report on the birds in your neighbourhood Lydia :-) I give you an A plus for your report, it was very informative!

[Nana]

You're a girl after my own heart with your observations and photographs of birds. Excellent writing, too, Lydia! Love, Nana xoxox

[Ellen]

Lydia - what a great post - I love to watch birds, especially at the feeder. And lately, there have been tons of birds hanging in my back yard.

Kimberlee, please thank Josiah for inspiring me to make a cape for my friend's son for his Obi Wan Kenobi costume. While I used a pattern (that I modified to suit the purpose), I used his instructions to add a hood to the garment I made.

[J.C.]

Lydia, what an excellent and extremely interesting report! The text and the photographs were amazing. I can't wait to show it to my daughter tomorrow. I think she will love it. Congratulations! (Move over, Mom, we have yet another family blogger with which to share cyber-space, now!:)

[Vicki]

Incredible pictures!