Morning photos

On the way out to feed the cats this morning, I spied this on the ground:

It's a blackbird egg. Have a closer look:

Oops... missed the nest. Or the nest wasn't ready in time. Or something.

On the way back to the house, I noticed the hostas were making a little progress:

SLOW progress. Our 'occasional' warm day doesn't make for very fast growing.

We got a good rain last evening, and it's still kind of misty and dreary. The moisture is good, but today's predicted high of 52° isn't exactly good growing weather. Brrr!

Another sign of spring

While I was out mowing on Wednesday, I scared a couple of birds off their nests. The next morning I went out with the camera... and scared them off again.

Here's a robin's nest:

And a blackbird's nest:

Perfect, aren't they? But goodness... 5 eggs! Do blackbirds usually lay that many (Dale?)? It's gonna be a lot of work when those little beaks appear wanting food!

I hope the parents can keep those eggs warm! High temp is only supposed to be in the mid-40's today, and tonight there's that 's' word in the forecast. Ack! No accumulation, though... hopefully. And for tomorrow night there's a chance of patchy frost. Someone had better go out and put blankets on the corn that's peeking out of the ground!

Robin's egg blue

The birds must be having trouble getting their nests made this year or something. Maybe because of the weather? Anyway, in 2 days I've found 3 different eggs just lying on the ground.

This first is a robin egg, found at the base of a tree.

This next one's a wren egg, I think. The photo doesn't really give much perspective on the size. I should've held it in my hand to show how tiny it is. Compare it to the blades of grass, I guess. I found it under the edge of a bush right next to the house, with no nest in sight.

I think this third one is a blackbird egg. It was just out in the open. Poor birds.

Here's a beginning of a nest that I found in the old asparagus stalks that I was cleaning out of the garden. It's pretty tiny... maybe made by a wren, or perhaps one of those song sparrows I showed you a couple days ago. It has very fine hairs and stuff woven together in it.

In contrast, here's a big nest near the top of a lilac bush... probably a blackbird nest. It may be an old one from last year. It seems to be made of mostly twigs, "sewn" together with bits of twine string. I think it's amazing how birds can build their nests!

Note that the lilac bush is finally getting little green leaf buds!