It all started last weekend. I walked out on the back porch and did a double take at the garden…Then I back pedaled into the house and call my wife and grandson to hurry out and see. There in the garden that Saturday morning were a couple of peafowl…Peahens, maybe. As we watched they wandered on off towards the woods.
Sunday morning they were back…Now it shouldn’t surprise me that we have peafowl wandering about in the backyard as there have been peacocks strutting their stuff around the corner for years and years. But this is the first time they have come visiting. The ostentation of peafowls down the road appears to have had a population explosion. There have always been 3 to 5 birds living down there but this year I have seen more than any other year.
Then later on Sunday morning the cute guy at the top of this post started throwing himself at the window in my office. He was back at it on Monday…Twice. Today he was throwing himself at the back window. For three days I was trying to catch a picture until today he sat still long enough for me to get the camera…Studying the guide I came to the conclusion that the bird bashing itself against my window is a Great Crested Flycatcher.
After living for twenty years on this property, I had never seen this species before.
A treetop hunter of deciduous forests and suburban areas, the Great Crested Flycatcher is easier to hear than to see. The only eastern flycatcher that nests in cavities, it often includes snakeskin in the nest lining.
via Great Crested Flycatcher, Identification, All About Birds – Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
So…Maybe they were always right there above my head…In the treetops.
Last evening the swallows returned…I have been wondering all spring where the swallows that used to entertain me in the back yard were. Toward dusk last evening they began flying their patterns again. Back when we first moved out here I would wander out and sit on the grass as they wheeled around dodging me as they chased insects…I hadn’t realized how much I missed them till I went out to sit on the back porch and watched them wheeling around as the light faded.
Hey guys…It’s nice to see ya.
On another note…Today marks the 6th anniversary of the first post I ever put up on North Carolina Mountain Dreams…So, happy anniversary to me…
Oh, my gosh. What a wonderful phrase you came up with – “an ostentation of peafowls”! That’s just great.
I’ve never been around peacocks much, but when I started working on a boat on Davis Road in League City, I thought I was hearing a woman screaming. I called the home/boat owner to ask about it, it was so unnerving. He just laughed and said, “It’s the peacocks.”
Interesting that you’ve just gotten your swallows. They showed up at Clear Lake about a month ago. I didn’t see them much except around the marinas. In fact, there are swallows who’ve learned that one of the safest places in the world to build a nest is up under the floating docks. They’re well above the water line, no one sees them, and the parents have a straight shot into the nest, right above the water. I discovered what was going on last year when I heard all the cheeping – this year, the same spots have nests in them again.
They are wonderful – but I do love hearing the nighthawks swoop and dive!
I can’t take credit for the phrase…It’s what you call a group of peafowl (or peacocks for most of us). We’ve been listening to them in the distance for as long as we’ve been out here, so I am used to their calls. But this was the first time they have wandered near.
I think the swallows have been here a few weeks now but they have been flying their patterns high in the sky above us not down at eye level. We seem to have a mixed group doing their aerobatics each year. They always do their dance at dusk so they are hard to identify, but, they appear to be a mix of barn swallows, purple martins, and an occasional chimney swift.
We seldom hear the nighthawks since we left the parking lot lights so many years ago.