Spring migration is over, most of the neo-tropical birds now settled in their breeding areas for summer’s chick raising. I didn’t have quite the numbers of migrants through my gardens this year. I don’t know if it’s that I simply didn’t see as many or if there weren’t as many; I hope it’s the first and not the second. That being said, it’s a challenge to watch the many flitty birds that visit my front garden, as I don’t have a unobtrusive spot in which to hide and observe. Lincoln and Chipping Sparrows showed up, as they scattered when I came into the garden. I saw busy, chatty Eastern Phoebes, and Great Crested and Crested Flycatchers; I usually heard them before seeing them and identified those (and others) using my Merlin app to identify calls and songs.

My back garden is still the best place to bird watch and it didn’t appoint. In an earlier post, I profiled a male Summer Tanager, Piranga rubra,

…and an Indigo Bunting, Passerina cyanea, who visited on the same day. I wonder if they coordinated, as red and blue go nicely together?

The tanagers usually show up in May and hang out near my beehive as they’re bee and wasp hunters. I’ve only seen an Indigo a couple of other times, so I was pleased with this pretty fella; he was obliging for the photo shoot. Both of these birds breed in the southern half of the US, the bunting with a wider range than the tanager. As a general rule, I only see these birds during spring or fall migration, though female Summer Tanagers have visited my gardens in summer months.

Painted Buntings also make an appearance in early May, usually for a couple of days. The only male Painted Bunting, Passerina ciris, that I saw this year was perched in my SIL’s Retama Tree, which sits outside one of our bedroom windows, offering close-ups of its lovely flowers and foliage at the window. I saw movement out the window, observed the handsome guy, ran for the camera, realized the battery was dead, said some bad words, replaced the battery, and by the time I returned for the shot, Mr. Gorgeous was semi-hiding in the pretty foliage and flowers of the Retama.

Harrumph!

On the brighter feathered side, two female Painted Buntings spent an afternoon noshing on seed fallen from the the safflower and sunflower feeders. They never were close enough to one another to acheive both in a photo, but this pretty one was still long enough for me to capture her nibbling on a seed. Her sister bird is just as attractive.

Two pairs of Common Yellowthroats, Geothlypis trichas, spent some time in my gardens over several weeks. This male, with his lemon yellow chest and jaunty black mask was all about bathing in the pond and fluttering dry in nearby shrubs. I never think these cuties the least bit common, despite their names.

The females Common Yellowthroats were hard to see, only allowing the briefest of glimpses as they bopped for seeds and insects in, out, and through undergrowth. One of the females finally emerged from the greens of the garden long enough for me to capture her in a few photos. She’s less colorful than her mate, but darling nonetheless and her yellow is just as lemony as her male partner. These tiny birds fly far for their breeding, as they are mostly out of Texas to raise their families.

I like this bird-on-bird photo!

We were gone for the first week of May and that’s a prime time for migrants through my gardens, including Baltimore, Bullock’s, and Orchard Orioles. This female Bullock’s Oriole, Icterus bullockii, was a late arrival and perched amiably on a metal bird just so I could catch a shot of her. She was only around one evening and I saw no other orioles this spring unless they all came through when I was traveling. I’m a bit sad about that, either the lack or orioles or my having missed them. Orioles are easy to spot in a garden owing to their bright colors! I hope this one is north of Texas now, somewhere in the central or western part of the country, preparing for or tending to some healthy chicks.

Hummingbirds are here, too, though no photos yet. They’ll hang out through summer nectaring on a variety of my plants, most of the tiny terrors leaving by late October. Resident birds are tending to growing chicks, or have already competed the intense part of parenting, and breeding season will wrap up soon for most species around here. It’ll be mostly the usual suspects until sometime in August, when new calls are heard, and young birds hatched far north of here, together with their parents, make their way southward again for winter, continuing the timeless migratory patterns their genetics demand.