Monday, July 12, 2021

Winged summer visitors / Murmuration / Aoife O'Donovan

Northern Flicker feeding a young one who soon
after makes the mistake of bumping into my
window before flying away

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Hummingbird and Salvia

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One needs to see this full screen and  then look very 
closely for the starling murmuration at the beginning 
of this video.  Toward the end I zoomed in, making 
it somewhat easier to see the small murmuration.  In 
the last few seconds of filming, I heard the whirring 
sound of a hummingbird and looked up and was startled
to see a hummingbird directly in front of me.  One can
see the equally startled hummingbird flying away at the 
end of the video.  This is the second morning in a row
 that I have looked out my east-facing window and seen
a murmuration and one of many mornings in the past 
week when a hummingbird has flown close to me as 
I stood on my porch, both of us looking around in the 
early morning.

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When the universe is silent we listen with great pleasure to a bird that suddenly sings.
-- Hong Zicheng


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved the videos. I did feel bad for that little Northern flicker. Window-hits can be pretty hard on them. I hope it's okay.
We've seen murmurations here at the marsh. Quite a stunning sight.

Pixie said...

You live in heaven. It's so beautiful

Colette said...

You live in such a beautiful place. So peaceful and green. That was quite the fat and happy little hummingbird. I had to look up the meaning of murmuration. Now I know!

Sabine said...

Everything in this post is a treat. Thank you!

37paddington said...

What a view!

dritanje said...

Great treats to see these videos, especially, for me, the hummingbird, as they don't visit here in the UK. I have a host of starlings living in my hedge, and they often fly in their flocks round and about, especially if I walk down the garden path and disturb them! (So I often leave the house the back way, via a new tree plantation and a path through a field, to the road.)