So, after the thrill of seeing Prof Goldberg clean out the birdbath the other day, I was a little put out when I noticed that the high wind (I’m guessing) had deposited a bit of grass in that nice clean water. You can see it in this shot of a Dark-eyed Junco I got yesterday at 4:18:
I might not care for vegetation in my bathwater, but apparently the birds on Craig’s deck didn’t mind, since there was plenty of birdbath action yesterday. But look at what happened today: By the time kiddo got this shot of the American Robin at 11:43, the water was looking downright murky (because of dirt carried in on the grass, maybe?):
I don’t know if the dirty water had anything to do with it, but the very next shot, taken by pabirdguy in the same minute, shows a bird standing in the same place that looks different enough that noho_bird_club, at least, believes it to be a juvenile European Starling:
But the fun with the murky water didn’t stop there. As if they found the yucky-looking water particularly attractive, the next few hours saw a steady stream of birds visiting the bath, including some species that I don’t remember seeing there before. There was this House Sparrow at 12:18, photographed by noho_bird_club:
And this robin at 12:20, also captured by noho_bird_club (note the effect of the water on its chest, which makes me think the earlier “starling” might just have been a very wet robin):
There was also a junco at 12:33 (#9414, by noho_bird_club), two House Sparrows at 12:35 (#9420, pennsylavian), and this junco at 1238 (kiddo):
A House Finch at 1:04 (lfujim0):
A Western Scrub-Jay at 1:45 (kryptonkay):
The robin again at 2:20 (#9468, by mary mactavish), the junco again at 5:15 (#9529, by lin), and a Mourning Dove at 4:55, by tedr:
So, at 7:21 p.m. I was going through all these great birdbath images, and I wondered if there might be anything else going on at the birdbath. And I panned over, and had the great pleasure of watching an Allen’s Hummingbird (I’m saying that based on the date, though all I’m sure of is that it was a Selasphorus) bathe itself by hovering over the bath and repeatedly diving into it on the wing. I hit my limit of 10 photos pretty quick, and by the time I’d deleted the rejects to try to get more the hummingbird was gone. But I managed to get these two images:
All in all, an awesome day at the birdbath. Let’s keep it dirty from now on!