Birds

 

Look who came to see us this afternoon!  Mr. (or Mrs.) Roadrunner is back.  I saw it the other day and announced it to the family, but today I got pictures. 

 

Years ago, we had a roadrunner who would come to the house quite often and hang out.  When we were getting our a new roof put on, that roadrunner would come around and clean up the old cigarettes the men working on the roof would leave.  It was quite a sight to see.  Imagine--a roadrunner sitting on the window sill (like in the picture above) chewing on a cigarette.  

 

Needless to say, that roadrunner left a while back, and until this month, we haven't had any around the house. 

 

The other day while I was outside looking at my pigeons, and my chickens started cackling in such a way I knew something wasn't normal.  

 

Now, Let me explain: chickens (or at least my chickens) will alert each other if there is a low flying bird in the sky, such as a hawk, a couple of fighting sparrows, etc.  When they sight a possibility of danger, they look to the sky and watch for anything they should hide from.  Anyway...

 

I looked to the sky and quickly saw a large bird shadow.  When I followed it and found the bird, I was surprised to see a Blue Heron!  I've seen a bunch before in the pastures and other places, but never right in front of our house.  I watched it land in our elm tree, and then fly off, I thought it was never to be seen again. 

But I was wrong.  A couple of days after, it showed up again, this time landing to the side of our house where I got to look at it for a second. 

 

This past month, Beatrice, my hen, hatched two chicks.  Yay!  As did my other hen, Paprika, though they all died.  But Paprika began sitting again and now has three darling chicks.  Yay, again!  Likewise, my pigeons are doing better at keeping their squabs alive.  I don't even know how many of them we've lost this year, but thankfully, we have some more little pigeons who are doing fine. 

 

Among my many pigeons and chickens and doves (oh my...) we have a bunch of wild birds that are great to listen to and watch, and I for one am really glad God made them.  Just being the bird lover that I am--I decided to do a post about my favorite animals.  Hope you enjoyed.  : )

 

Beatrice's chicks

 

Monday Post

 



Hello again.  I've been really busy and blogging has not been on my mind...well, okay, it's been on my mind, but I haven't gotten to it until now.

My hen, Beatrice (in above picture) finally hatched two chicks after sitting on two batches of eggs.  The first time she didn't have any fertilized eggs, thus didn't receive any babies.  She has proven to be determined and kept sitting.  However, she didn't lay her own eggs, and since she was sitting on old, rotting eggs, I took some of my other hens' eggs and gave them to Beatrice.  I was hoping she would have some hatch, for she deserved some little ones.  Thankfully, they did come and she's the happiest hen on the ranch.
  

 
Then Mom's cat had two kittens, and a lovey pair they are!  The mamma cat is Juniory and the dad, or who we think is/was the dad, the stray T. Cat. (You can see both parents in my blog post titled, "A Pretty May Evening.")  I wouldn't be surprised if we keep both kittens even though we don't want too many cats on the ranch. 

Dad took us three kids to work on a fence a couple weeks ago, and I had my camera along to get some pictures.  So here are a few of them.  

 

 

Thank you, Dad, for taking this picture.
(L to R) Big J., Little J., and myself.

 

Thanks, Big J., for taking this picture.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for taking a look.  : )