I was at my parents' house on the Cape this past weekend and despite the rainy weather there was quite a lot of activity at the front and back yard feeders. I saw a lone Chipping Sparrow, which went back and forth between the front and back yards, a Goldfinch pair, a female Cardinal, several chickadees and nuthatches, and a titmouse. I was also happy to observe that both of my parents' birdhouses are currently being moved into—the nuthatches are moving into the front yard birdhouse and the titmice are moving into the back yard birdhouse. Two years ago my parents had a great crested flycatcher family attempt to live in the back yard feeder, but House Sparrows kicked them out. They cleaned out the birdhouses after that and repainted them, but didn't get any inhabitants last year. My dad hypothesized that maybe they didn't like the fresh paint smell and now that the houses have had a year to 'season' they're attractive again. Nonetheless, I'll be anxious to see how these two families fare and hopefully the house sparrows will stay away.
I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...
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