A Sure Sign that Spring Hath Sprunged (2 of 2)

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Note the paper teabag wrapper in the photo. I think it adds a "New Yorkish touch" to its construction.

Nest of the Northern cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, located in a tree in the traffic circle in front of the Museum's parking garage.

Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George [larger view].

Did you notice the pale blue eggs in the nest?

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I have to tell a story about birds - nothing to do with today's picture, but all you bird watching people will appreciate it. We live in a city. But our house is on a cul-de-sac so the backyard is much wider than the front. And, we back up to a greenbelt which is wild and forested. My wife has about a half-dozen feeders out there. So we get a lot of birds - usually the same ones: sparrows, doves, cardinals, woodpeckers. Once in a while, usually in the Spring migrating season, something unusual shows up. Several years ago at this time of year we were sitting at the kitchen table looking out at birds in the yard and I said: I'm tired of looking at grey birds and black birds and brown birds, I want to see some birds that are red and green and yellow and orange and purple, like the parrots we saw in Australia. I looked down at the window sill, and I thought I was hallucinating, there was a bird sitting there that was green and orange and yellow and purple. I yelled at my wife and she looked and verified that it was real. It sat there for several minutes before leaving. We looked it up. It was a Painted Bunting - the most colorful bird in North America. It has showed up one other time since then. Now, as to today. Today we had the most colorful collection of birds out there at one time that we have ever had. I was sitting at this computer and my wife screamed - come see this. THIS, it turned out was an Indigo Bunting. And it stayed out there for about an hour. We had lunch and kept looking and he wandered around out there for the whole time. In addition, at the same time, we had out there our usual collection of doves and sparrows, but also about 8 or 10 Cardinals, several male Goldfinches in their brilliant yellow color, a Downy woodpecker with his little red cap, a house finch with his red coloration AND three varieties of sparrow: a white throated (white striped form) with white stripes on his head, another white throated (tan striped form) with yellow(tan) stripes on his head, and either a Lincoln or Chipping sparrow.
We are in Heaven.

Your comments are, well, warm and wonderful. And an Painied Bunting no less? I confess to an ecomony-sized amount of envy.

I saw something similar in Kissena Park in Queens yesterday. A robin was building a nest and was trying to use a grocery store plastic bag and not a piece of a bag, the whole bag.

It carried the bag up to where it was building its nest, maneuvered it onto the top of its emerging nest, and sat down on the bag. The bag was flapping in the wind and the robin sat there and seemed to be very happy with its work.