Recently I received two magical pieces of mail. Getting real mail from a real friend is still really exciting. I was lucky to get two such marvelous pieces of mail in the same week.
First, I got mail from Kathryn Seyerle, artist, poet and creator.
The robot sticker is especially appropriate as she made the beloved robot at Bexley Public Library that has been featured in several of my videos from home this spring.
It was a pretty thick envelope, let's see what's inside shall we?
Now, who doesn't like a gold foil unicorn? And then...
OOOohhhh My own hand painted frame-able art card featuring one of the things I love most in the world!
But wait, there's more!
An adorable Instax mini picture of a flower garden on brick? Neat!
Get your own magical mail here.
I got another lovely letter from a friend living out West and I had no expectation of any thing else but they sent me the item on the right.
A four leaf clover! Now that's friendship. I am pretty sure if I found a four leaf clover, I would keep it for myself, but this gem of a friend thought fit to put it in the mail over 1,000 miles for me.
And, I got it the same week of another lovely surprise, the Killdeer egg that you see on the left. I have blogged about Killdeer before, as almost every spring I have one nest in the lavender field because they love to nest in gravel. I did not get a good picture of the Killdeer on her nest this year, but I have dug around from a previous blog post to give you an idea of what the eggs, nest, and bird look like. This first picture is the Killdeer actually doing their broken wing act to draw my attention away from the nest.
I noticed her on Monday May 4 when I was hanging sheets on the line. It takes 21 to 28 days to incubate and the hatched out on Tuesday May 26th. This means I did not weed in the lavender for three weeks. This will be covered in another blog post I assure you.
Anyway, they nest just about every year in the gravel of the lavender. The first spring we were in the house, we actually had a pair nest in the middle of the driveway and I put a traffic cone by it so nobody would run over it when the bird wasn't sitting on it.
Every year I try to collect one of the egg shells and I never manage to. I don't know why I haven't been able to as the eggs are fairly large and you would think heavier and travel less far, especially when I'm monitoring the nest every day or two.
I was lamenting to Andrew about it Tuesday night as we heard the Killdeer family calling to each other in the yard. Then he mentioned he saw an egg while weedwhacking, large, with brown red speckles by the wooden fence just past the willow tree.
And it was still there!
The chick literally hatched out of the narrow end of this egg, it's almost completely whole! Then I found what I think is the broken end on the way to taking care of the chickens.This is a real treasure and while I didn't get good photos of the bird this year, I did manage to get on a lark this video of the four babies in the front yard! It's grainy, and my narrative isn't David Attenborough quality, but check it out. If you are getting the email follow the link for the video.
But this is not all the bird news. We have at least two robins nesting, I know we have at least one mockingbird nest but I'm not sure where, and we have another nest in the lavender, a ground sparrow!
Five tiny eggs, less than half the size of a Killdeer egg and a nest that could fit in the palm of my hand with room to spare. I kept spooking the little brown wren walking too close to comfort to her plant to weed. I finally broke down and looked around to see what I could find. This was last week. I'll check in on them when the warm front passes. Luckily since she is so well covered in the plant, I can work in the lavender (and boy have I since the Killdeer hatched) without disturbing her just as long as I walk in from another angle.
Spring wouldn't be complete with out a Robin's nest.
And another nest has hatched already.
Just this morning I found another eggshell while walking Tutu. It could have been a ground sparrow egg or maybe a mockingbird's, I need to do more research but I am going to go with ground sparrow because this little guy is smaller than a robin's egg and mockingbirds are bigger than robins, or at least very close to the same size
And here it is beside the killdeer egg and a Monarch butterfly (found dead) for scale.
And some less happy bird news.
I think one of the bluebirds got nailed by a cooper's or sharp shinned hawk. I think it was the female.
I have plans for this blue feather, the Killdeer egg, and the four leave clover, I just have to find the right item to pull it all together.
To learn more about Killdeer, one of my favorite birds, go here.
There is still more bird news not directly on the property but in the neighborhood, like my parents' cottonwood tree by the yard has orioles yet again.
The orioles have been coming around on and off for over 15 years now and they always nest in this giant cottonwood by the pond.
Down the road there's a rooster pheasant that survived hunting season.
He paid for his life with his tail it would appear to have been shot clean off. Even though he can't regrow his feathers from the close call, it's not stopping him from living his best life and strutting his stuff for the ladies.
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