It’s that time of the year when all of the little chicks have fledged and it’s time to clean out their bird houses to get ready for next spring…. Or, maybe someone might move in there for  the winter months. We frequently have Downy Woodpeckers using our bird houses during the winter.

We found this beautiful nest in our Eastern Screen Owl house. It was so tall and so soft! What a beauty!  The male that we named Hootie lived there for a couple of weeks and was obviously quite busy building this nest. Either his anticipated mate never found  him or a predator stopped by and scared him off.

We cleaned out all of the bird houses and put 2-3” of wood shavings in the Owl House just in case he comes back over the winter or in early spring looking for a nice place to make his home, Fingers crossed…

I was just commenting to Phil that I had not seen a Cooper’s Hawk in our yard in a long time. They frequently like to hang out in the trees near our bird feeders, looking for their next meal. (Click on blog link for other photo.)

And then this beautiful hawk landed on a branch nearby and I was able to take some nice photos, even through the window. He stayed for a bit, but then flew away when he realized there were no birds anywhere nearby.

We had quite a few Hummingbirds at the beginning of the summer and then none for many weeks, so we were excited when this Ruby-throated Hummingbird came back this week.

She’s been hanging around the hummingbird feeder and flowers quite a bit, but I really liked this photograph of her resting on a branch in the tree.

What do you think?

These two Blue Jay chicks have been hanging around our yard for quite a while. They have been so much fun to watch.  (Click on blog link for other photo.)

This little guy was trying out our little bird bath… and seemed to be really liking it!