My yard is on small city lot too. We've been enjoying the backyard birds here too lately: cardinals, blue jays, nanday conures, and blue crowned conures at the bird feeder; an indigo bunting taking a bath at the edge of the pond; mockingbirds mobbing a black racer.

John

Birds, BIRDS?? Dang, I thought I had tinnitus. WHEW!

Lou

I love the conures John! Periodically a pair of Amazon parrots comes by to feast on the dwarf ponciana seeds. They're so much fun to watch! And I haven't seen them in awhile, but every so often I get a pair of orioles in the yard. I forget the name - brown breasted or maybe speckle breasted. They're not Baltimore orioles, though they look similar. They're a Mexican version that was brought here as pets, released and managed to form a small colony in South Dade. They thought Hurricane Andrew wiped them out but they've just recently discovered they still have a small colony.
And they sing so sweetly.

The birds in my yard have been pretty active lately too. The chickadee chicks that were nesting in a small birdhouse hanging from my crape myrtle just left the nest but before then I would hear them cheeping everytime I walked past the trees. It was funny to watch the parents follow me and fuss every time they saw me walking near their nest. My parents got to watch the chickadee chicks that were nesting in their summer kitchen take their first flight and leave the nest.

One day last week I saw a medium sized woodpecker, several bluebirds, mocking birds, and cardinals all gathered on the power lines by my house. Wasn't sure why such a wide range of birds were all gathered together until I saw them taking turns beating up a couple large crows. I assume that means that all of them are nesting in the area. The mockingbirds have also been harrassing the pair of red-shouldered hawks that live in the area and like stake out my front yard.

At night I get to listen to the barred owls calling back and forth. I haven't seen them yet but my parents who live next door see them in their front yard in the live oaks on a nearly nightly basis. Those owls sound like a bunch of demented monkeys when they really get going!

John, that is a really neat picture of those parrots!

Love that photo. Thanks so much for sharing. Birds are my favorite part of working outdoors. Wish I could put out bird seed to feed the birds, but so risky to be tempting roof rats, which can get to our roof so easily. I know they're in the neighborhood. So, I try to content myself with having water for the birds, and whatever seed heads and berries they can feed off of here.

girlsaylor

I love watching the birds protect their nests. One poor squirrel has been harassed out of just about every tree in the yard. The jays must have a nest around here somewhere too because the other day he went from the oak tree, where the mocking bird hassled him, to the sapodilla, where the jays started bugging him.
Today the neighbor's cat was sitting on a patio chair, probably 15 feet from my oak tree, but that wasn't far enough for the mocking bird, who sat on another chair at the same table and fussed at him for 20 minutes. The cat finally gave up and went under the deck.