Front Porch Birding

Across a little strip of lawn from the front porch is the biggest, most prolific honeysuckle bush in the yard. The fruit is ripe, and it's doing great business. I can sit on the front porch and watch young American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Gray Catbirds, Brown Thrashers, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Baltimore Orioles chowing down.

Adult Cedar Waxwing
The first serious visitors were fledgling robins and their parents, but soon the waxwings began visiting in earnest. They're are at least two families of waxwings coming, going by the different plumages on the fledglings.

Last week fledgling robins dominated
The catbirds, thrashers, orioles and grosbeaks are more occasional visitors. This has been a fantastic year for most fruit, and the yard offers chokecherries, as well as a number of honeysuckle feeding stations. There were so many chokecherries on the two small trees that I was able to harvest enough for jelly and leave behind more than the total we've seen in other years.

Young Cedar Waxwing, feeding on its own!
There is a pair of wrens nesting in a watering can hanging in the patio, I think. But the other birds in the yard seem to be done with nesting. The goldfinches have returned after an absence of some weeks (or at least, they were keeping a lower profile). Blue jay young are whining everywhere. A family of warbling vireos passed through a few days ago. Chickadees, young in tow, are flocking around. Sparrows, mostly chipping and song, are more numerous. Clusters of phoebes have been noted. And I think I saw a very young fledgling grackle yesterday. On the other hand, swallows are scarce (I saw swallows gathering in Prince Edward County last week, in preparation for the big move). And I saw a single nighthawk fly over the other evening--a sure sign that fall is coming.