Birds on my Bethesda balcony
Summertime tends to be a busy season for me, so I’ve neglected this blog a bit, but I’ve also somewhat neglected the balcony. For the most part I’ve kept up with everything, but haven’t been able to spend as much time as I’d have liked.
I have had a downy woodpecker as a regular visitor. read more
Today is the best weather day we’ve had in ages. I can’t complain about hot, humid weather — it doesn’t really bother me too much. But this morning it was 70 degrees and low humidity, lots of sun and blue skies. I went out for a bike ride and then came home to clean up the balcony. read more
Well the party is over on the 1st and 2nd floor balconies across from me. Someone must have turned them in because suddenly the feeders were gone, but none of the other balcony items were. read more
We’re seeing quite a few fledglings lately. Roman spotted the first one and asked me why the bird was fluttering like that. It was a sparrow; they are turning up more now that the two other balconies with feeders have stopped feeding. I think they were turned in; but they may be moving. read more
Today I got my first hummingbird at the balcony. Unfortunately I was just opening the screen door to go outside and it skedaddled. It hasn’t returned; maybe it already scoped out the flowers and found nothing of interest. I’m not really sure if hummingbirds eat geraniums, dianthus, or petunias, but my guess would be they’re not a very hearty meal. read more
Let me introduce to you my juniper bonsai. I got him last December from a vendor at the mall. I couldn’t resist, they were so cute and I thought it was pretty inexpensive. So I bought this one and a serissa bonsai that is extremely tempermental and resides on a sunny windowsill inside. Juniper bonsai, however, is doing well on the balcony and has been outside since I got him except when the temps dropped below freezing. read more
He’s back! He’s our most frequent visitor now, actually. We really enjoy him stopping by. He still tends to look in the window a little, but now that he’s more confident, he perches on the plant stand, then on its leg, where he perks his crest up and does some chirping. Then he heads for a peanut. Mrs. Cardinal has not been seen. I hope to see some juveniles when the time comes, though. I don’t know when that is, but I’ll keep watching for them. read more
Took a day off work today to take care of some personal business, and thankfully that was wrapped up relatively early. The weather was unbelievable so I stopped at Lowe’s to pick up some plants. I was sorely disappointed for several reasons, the only relevant one being that their selection was pretty depleted, and I was told that more was arriving tomorrow. Great. Tomorrow I’ll be at work. read more
Thank goodness Spring actually arrived this weekend. It seemed we were dragging it in kicking and screaming for the past month. But it’s here this weekend – the most beautiful spring days you could imagine. Or maybe I’ve just anticipated so long, or forgotten what a nice spring day could be! read more
The purpose of this is really two-fold, just to fully disclose my goals. One is to share my experience with birds, particularly those on my balcony. I actually get a rather interesting assortment, from the regulars to those just passing through.
The other goal is to learn about blogging. I learned about building websites by creating my own — now defunct, since its purpose was fulfilled, at least to the extent I felt it necessary. I’m certainly no expert in creating websites, especially now, several years later. But I can edit HTML code and I understand the basics, which, given that I’m not in the website-building business, is quite enough for me. For now, anyway.
Back to the birds part of this. I remember the advice, “write about what you know.” Also WordPress had good advice to focus on a topic, that you can’t please everyone all the time. Good point. So my focus is birds. I know them, love learning more, and love talking about them with other people.
So here we go.
