Category: Phoebe

Earth Day 2022

In honor of Earth Day 2022, I bring you some of my birds. As you think of these precious birds, and our wonderful planet, I hope you can decide to work to make a difference. Not to save our planet, but things you can do to save our environment. The planet doesn’t need to be saved. It’s going to keep on spinning for billions of years. Our environment needs to be saved. The environment these birds need to survive. The environment we humans need to survive.

These and other delicate creatures and creatures that don’t seem so delicate need our help. Celebrate our planet today on Earth Day and determine to make a difference. There is so much to be done. You’ve heard all the options. Make up your mind and do it.

The birds, top row, left to right: Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis).

Middle row, left to right: Costa Hummingbird (Calypte costae), Scarlet Tanager (female)(Piranga olivacea), Sharp Shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus).

Bottom row, left to right: Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea), Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus).

_______________________________________________________________________

If you would like to receive my daily blog posts by email, sign up here!

More Eastern Phoebes

That bobbing of the tail and saying its name makes identification of the Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) mighty easy. Many bird songs baffle me, but this one is easy. Just think “fee-bee” (Phoebe) and you’ve got it.

I was delighted as I was refreshing my memory about what Phoebes eat to see that they not only eat flying insects which they capture in mid-air but they also eat spiders, millipedes and TICKS! Yay Phoebes! I can’t find a specific reference to it, but now I’m wondering if they also eat brown marmorated stink bugs. Too bad that they are such solitary birds. I’d love to have a big flock of them around.

Not as exciting as the Phoebe eating ticks and BMSBs but they do sometimes even eat small fish from shallow water. Such a talented bird.

As I look through my images thinking of which to include I see this photo of a Phoebe at one of my birdbaths. This reminds me to mention that as a pair goes through the process of selecting a site for breeding, one of their considerations is having a source of water nearby. That is something that I always try to provide in every season. You’ll get many more birds stopping by to see you with that birdbath set up. All four seasons.