Eastern Phoebe babies

The Eastern Phoebe babies have grown very quickly and I imagine will soon be leaving the nest. I always freak out the parents when I photograph them...

Baby Eastern Phoebes

It's no wonder they grow so fast (although, at the same time still full of wonder). The parents catch bugs for them all day long. Here's another shot of the mom or dad (not sure how to distinguish them):

And this turned out to be an interesting shot as it started flying just as I took the photo:

Eastern Phoebe in flight

Backyard nature

Last weekend toward dusk the birds of the neighborhood were going nuts - they were definitely disturbed by something. That something turned out to be what we believe is a Barred Owl (thanks to my dad's keen observation for finding it)!

I was able to snap a few shots of it:

Barred Owl

I saw it again on Monday after noticing the birds were in a frenzy again.

And under our porch in the front yard, we have a Eastern Phoebe nest:

Eastern Phoebe

Eastern Phoebe nest with babies.

I noticed today that the babies were popping their heads up and chirping ever so sweetly. I'm pretty sure we have another Eastern Phoebe nest in the backyard as well.

Cooper's Hawk

I saw a Cooper's Hawk today, at least that's what I think it was (difficult to distinguish from Sharp-shinned Hawk). I've seen them before and this winter we had one eat a dinner in our backyard leaving the feathers and beak behind - we never actually saw the bird, but the clue was that there were no footprints in the snow around it.

Cooper's Hawk.
This cropped photo is the equivalent of a 700mm lens. Unfortunately, it was
taken with a 100mm lens - I sure wish I had a telephoto for these occasions.

Today it was around plenty during the morning and appears to be building a nest in a nearby tree. I watched it as it gathered sticks off the ground and flew them up into the nest. I didn't see it much in the afternoon, but that may have been because we were outside. I was able to get some video, but it didn't turn out too great.

I'll definitely keep watching to see if it ends up nesting there.

In other news, today will be the last warm day for a few weeks. We hit a high of about 73 today and it was beautiful out for the 3rd day in a row, but it's back down into the 30s tonight.