Very active birding day today!

Well, we were all content with seeing the regular round of folks at the feeders this morning, then with seeing Geese and a Heron while walking near the Savannah River, but we were unprepared for the afternoon's events.  I left the back door open while potting plants and a Chipping Sparrow flew in and got stuck.  We had a time catching him without hurting him or giving him a heart attack around the Foozball table and Ping Pong table and exercise equipment!  Finally netted him, we all gave him a good looking over, then opened hands and let him fly away.  He zipped in 1/2 a second!

The next excitement was hearing a strange sound and my daughter spotted the Hawk in our pine tree above the gazebo.  He was there for a minute making his chirping sounds, then flew beautifully away.  After downloading the pictures we decided he was a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. Bunnies and backyard birds beware!

Finally!!! Something to write about!

The kids were bored for more than a month with our favorite birds gone away when the weather abruptly went into the '80s and '90s.  But, in the past two weeks we've seen a pair of hummingbirds, the Chickadee has returned as has the Tufted Titmouse, but mostly it was the usual round of Chipping Sparrows, Cardinals, Mourning Doves, Mockingbirds and the like.  We got a quick glimpse of the Towhee, but he was too hard to catch with the camera like all the others.  But today was different.

We had torrential rains since last night and, since we've been in drought conditions for years, it was really unusual because it lasted for 24 hours.  Well today we had a hawk (who caught what I suspect was originally a dove) leave a pile of feathers and intestines in the middle of the yard.  And, I suspect because of the rain, we had a new visitor to the back yard.  We had to look it up, but it is a Gray Catbird!