Babies, Babies Everywhere

This has been a month of babies. These two little bunnies are enjoying the next door neighbor's yard. I walked out our front door and tried to zoom in to get a closer picture. I didn't want to get too close to them and scare them away. One day we were in the back yard and hubby looked down and asked what that was at my feet. It was a very young rabbit. We backed up slowly and left him alone. The baby bunnies and several adult bunnies live in a few habitats in our back area. Two habitats we made for them. One was here when we moved here.

Then one day while hubby was mowing, he looked down and saw that he had mowed across a nest of some kind. Upon closer inspection we saw brand new ground squirrels, all nestled in their mama's fur. There were four of them about the size of hubby's thumb. They were wiggling around. We found leaves and cut grass to cover the nest and would check on them occasionally. We watched them change colors and then the stripes were on their backs. They are Thirteen Stripe Ground Squirrels. We have seen a couple adults running around the back yard, checking out the food we leave on the ground for the tree squirrels and birds. They look like they are smiling, joyful little creatures. Have you ever seen a Thirteen Stripe squirrel?

The tree squirrels had babies as well. The baby tree squirrels couldn't get on the table at first and they looked like they had oversize feet. Like clown feet. The table is just outside our living room window. If the window and screen were not there we could reach out and touch all the critters. We sometimes have the window open and they are getting used to us talking and to hubby's music. The finches sing with his music and sometimes squirrels and birds are on the table at the same time.

There are plenty of baby birds too. Baby Grackles; baby Cardinals (the male Cardinal takes care of the babies most of the time); baby Robins; baby Mourning Doves; baby Blue Jays (who look exactly like the parents, just very small); baby Red Finches; baby Ring Neck Doves; baby red headed woodpeckers; baby lark sparrows.

With so many babies it gets noisy sometimes. It is an unbelievable privilege to be in the position of observing the birds growing, how they push their parents to the point of exhaustion sometimes, and especially how all the different bird groups get along in our yard. Calm and easygoing around each other.



Some day we will get better at photography so we can take clear pictures through the window and screen. The video was taken with the digital camera leaning on the inside window so the view is looking down on a table outside with bird seed and sunflower seeds on it. Unfortunately, the electric colors on the Blue Jay are dim and the powerful red,black,and white color design on the Red Headed Woodpecker don't show through the window and screen. But one day we will get better pictures that will knock your socks off!