Bird Activities in our Yard

     We have had many outstanding bird activities in our manicured suburban neighborhood in New Holland, Pennsylvania in the last five years that have made our lives more interesting.  Our neighborhood has been planted to grass that is regularly mowed, shrubs and trees.  A couple of bird baths provide water and a few bird feeders offer additional nutrition.
     One day in March a few years ago, all our goldfish disappeared from our 100 gallon back yard pond.  Late in the afternoon a few days later a neighbor and myself saw a great blue heron flying low up our street, circle our lawns and land in one of his Norway spruce trees.  The neighbor asked if I had seen the heron at our fish pond a few days ago.  I said I hadn't, but then knew what happened to our goldfish!
     We see several mallard ducks in our neighborhood because of a one-acre pond about a quarter of a mile away.  A pair of those mallards would swim in our fish pond, which was a bit comical.  And one spring, a female mallard laid 12 eggs in a grassy nest under a planted bush in our yard.  I figured when she laid the last egg and started to incubate her clutch.  I also predicted when they would hatch after 28 days of incubation.  On the day I thought the mother duck would leave her nursery with her brood, I watched from a discreet distance.  And, sure enough, she waddled across our lawn to the pond with a fluffy, winding stream of cute ducklings following her!
     In recent winters, one or two Cooper's hawks would attack house sparrows and mourning doves at our bird feeders.  In its attempt to escape, one dove crashed into an upstairs window and fell to the ground dead.  I always knew when an attack was about to happen because the birds suddenly dove for cover in shrubbery, or tried to fly away.  A Coop would dive into the bushes after the birds and I could see the potential prey and hawk scrambling about in that shrubbery.  Sometimes the hawk did catch a bird and fly to a tree limb perch to eat it.  Feathers fell from the bird as the raptor tore off chunks of meat.
     During a blizzard one winter's day, I saw from our house a sharp-shinned hawk standing on the snow cover and tearing feathers off a house sparrow it killed.  The hawk was preparing the bird to eat it.  The feathers blew away in the wind as the little hawk ate bits of meat right in the middle of that cold wind and drifting snow.  After several minutes, the sharpy flew away, leaving only a sparrow foot and beak, both of which were quickly covered by the falling and drifting snow, as though nothing happened there.
     Mourning doves are on our lawn the year around, mainly because of bird feeders during winter.  But in spring and summer a few pairs and their young dominate our neighborhood.  We hear their cooing all day, every day.  We see them and their fledged offspring flying about all through the warmer months.  Because pairs of doves have two staggered broods of young at any one time during the warmer months, each pair produces one pair of youngsters every month from April into September, for a total of 12 young a year, if it weren't for accidents like nests falling from trees in winds and predators such as Cooper's hawks, American crows, blue jays and others lurking in suburban lawns.
     We see several fledgling birds in our neighborhood every summer.  We see young mourning doves, northern cardinals, blue jays, American robins, purple grackles, gray catbirds, Carolina wrens, house wrens and house sparrows every summer on our lawn.
      Over the years, I have watched gray catbirds intently watching the grass cutting process on our yard.  They are eagerly looking for small, brown moths and other insects to be flushed out of the grass by the mower, insects the catbirds pursue, often grab and eat.  Those catbirds apparently associate grass mowing with food.
     One afternoon around the middle of June, I was sitting in our quiet living room beside an open window when I was almost knocked off the chair by a wood thrush singing, seemingly right at my elbow.  Peering cautiously out the window, there perched a handsome male wood thrush in a red-osier dogwood bush who sang his lovely, flute-like "e-o-laaa" and "a-o-leee" songs.  I stood still and the thrush continued fluting beautifully for close to a minute it seemed.  That thrush was my Central America and deciduous forest connection.
     One warm, sunny afternoon in mid-April I heard a blue jay vocalizing sweetly and saw him looking about on the lawn for any kind of invertebrate.  When he found a juicy tidbit, he flew into a small tree and fed it to another blue jay, presumably his mate.  Then down to the ground for another morsel to feed his love.  All this was blue jay courtship and about six weeks later I accidentally saw the results of that courting in the form of nearly fledged, young jays in a grass and twig cradle in an eight-foot-tall red juniper tree in our yard.         
     By luck one summer day, I saw a song sparrow feeding a fledged cowbird chick in our yard.  We hear about such happenings, but seldom actually see it.
     Carolina wrens are noted for nesting in strange places, such as in pockets in pants hung on wash lines, and in boots left outside, sheds, flower pots and other unusual spots.  And a few years ago, a pair of Carolinas had a nursery in a neighbor's outdoor grill they never seemed to use.  The adult wrens continually flew in carrying food and flew out carrying droppings, a sure sign of youngsters within the grill.  Eventually trips to the grill ceased and I figured the young fledged.
     These are some of the bird activities that happened in recent years in our suburban neighborhood in a small town.  Most readers can experience other bird activities in their neighborhoods that will be as interesting as the ones that too place in my home area over the last several years.