Wow! I've seen them flock but not in those numbers! They gather in an empty lot next to where I work and we watch their aerial stunts, it's like they play follow the leader but the leader changes every few moments. What's interesting is that two of our most invasive alien species of birds (european starlings and house sparrows) are both considered endangered in Britain. Makes you wonder if they don't get to the point where the species has outgrown it's natural boundaries and begins to decline. I know I would gladly ship all my starlings over there! We have another winter storm moving through tonight and the birds seemed to know as they were all very actively feeding at dusk. Typically the last birds that I see in the evening are cardinals and tonight when I looked out I counted 43! That was just at the back feeders so I'm sure that count is low. I tried to get a picture of as many as possible but the best I could do was 17. Taken through the window with flash so not my best but you get the idea ... Here is a link that might be useful:

I almost posted an observation along these lines several weeks ago. In a one-week span I noticed three separate cowbird chicks all being attended to by blue-grey gnatcatchers. There was always a single cb chick to each set of birds, and never any sign of additional BGGC chicks vying for the food. In that same time span I also noticed a CBchick being fed by a pair of indigo buntings. It's not hard to find them as they are very raucous and conspicuous. I am curious how the numbers and densities of birds most typically affected by CB predations are doing here because we have hordes of cowbirds, yet I always hear/see vireos and thrushes and others that are prime targets for parasitism. I check my nest boxes regularly and destroy any CB eggs in the hopes that at least my small wooded acreage can better sustain songbirds in a time of decline, but we live in farmland with any remaining wooded areas being highly fragmented. Flocks of winter 'blackbirds' are usually groupings of redwings, starlings, grackles and cowbirds fattened up on a steady and readily available farmland diet. I only wonder what our songbird demographics will do in the next few decades.

I grew up on a poultry farm. I don't think birds look pregnant. There is a series of pictures of a hummingbird nesting (2005) which shows the eggs to be half an inch long, or about 1/3 the size of a penny. I don't think this would distend the mama's belly enough to show. I am new here. Can I post a picture?

My kitten is enchanting, Socks--thanks! Peachy is graduating to her "big girl bed" tonight. She's been crated at night in a dog carrier, along with litter pan, water, dry food, and her midnight snack of canned kitten food. But she's getting too big for that space, so tonight I'm leaving the crate door open and letting her sleep in the guest room. Yes, the "big girl bed" is an entire room. LOL I'm doing this to get her used to that room, which is where she'll spend a couple of weeks after I have her spayed in a month or so. After she's all recovered she can spend the night downstairs with the other cats. I took a picture of her playing with Pogo tonight, and I'll come back and post it in a few minutes.