What A Weekend For Birds!

As you can see, Steve (left) is busy building a nest in the gourd on the dock. Last night he was joined by not only Windy, but another female. Scandalous behavior for East Texas. The Starlings were around on Friday night but yesterday morning I plugged the openings AGAIN and only one showed up last night. I lowered the house and found green leaves inside the gourd—a sure sign they are building a nest and getting ready to lay eggs. Martins only hatch one brood a year and they take their time building the nest.

In other news, the Bluebirds are still sitting on all five eggs. Hillary spends most of her time in the nesting box. First hummer showed up yesterday. Not one of our usual residents, I think it was a single migrating through. She stayed on the trumpet vine for about five minutes before taking off. Needless to say, the feeders are out.
Yesterday Lulu and I were lucky enough to watch a White-Tailed Kite hunting in the grasses on Buxom Island. At first I thought it was an Osprey but after checking the books, I believe, from its hovering behavior, it was a WTK.