Baby Bird Update

On Monday (June 13), I posted a picture of the Black-chinned Hummingbird nest I’ve been watching at the Rio Grande Nature Center since May 22…got another picture yesterday, where you can see that indeed both those tic-tac sized eggs hatched and the babies are just snoozing away.

Black-chinned Hummingbirds

I’d gone to the Nature Center after seeing a report on ebird about another Great Horned Owl nearby. While I think I did see a mature owl as it flew off to the north, there didn’t seem to be a nest anywhere nearby. Just for grins, I then wandered down the Bosque Loop trail, and noticed there’s some activity in the Cooper’s Hawk nest I’d first seen being occupied way back on March 20, but that had appeared abandoned since then. Looks like we’ve got at least one more baby Cooper’s Hawk growing up quickly.

Immature Cooper's Hawk

This morning, the Audubon Thursday Birder group had a pretty productive day in the foothills at the east end of Copper. We got great looks at several Scott’s Orioles (and a couple of Bullock’s Orioles), who are probably nesting in the area,

Scott's Oriole

saw a number of Black-throated Sparrows, including this one on its nest,

Black-throated Sparrow nest

and noticed several Cactus Wrens and their nests in the area. Other birds included Bushtits, Black-headed Grosbeaks, a Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Scaled Quail, Scrub Jay, White-winged Doves, Black-chinned and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, Say’s Phoebe, and a number of others for a total of 26 species in all. In one scrub oak, there were at least two and probably a couple more Canyon Towhees making a big fuss over something; this is a picture of two of them when they took a short break in the discussion.