Following the berries

Follow the food, find the birds. Catbird gorging berries.

The ginko fruit is there for the plucking.

Squirrel digging in mud in front of out door. Maybe looking for last year's buried nuts?

Back to berries. Oh my goodness, somebody different. The curious female scarlet tanager.

And then another berry lover, a hermit thrush, maybe juvenile. No fear, Absolutely juvenile behavior.

Wonderful berries, the bird lure.

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Berries

The young catbirds are gorging on these berries. They don't care if I watch.

And speaking of berries,   the white footed mouse most likely was up in the hawthorn tree, got a berry, slipped, fell, hit a rock, dead as a dodo. No sign of wound, just dead by side of path. Little mouse. Never dropped lunch. Great ears.

         Turned it over using a stick to better see the ears. Rigor mortis had already set in.
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Migration time

There's food and the visitors know it. Saw the yellow warbler working a bug-delicious space.

This berry space is being denuded. Female finch loves these berries.

Wasn't fast enough to really get this chestnut-sided warbler. Working with a different camera body, supposedly very fast. It isn't. It's been returned.

Hummers arriving. Didn't catch one yesterday. Stinky slow camera. Graphic play with older picture.
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Total surprise

This went dashing by my feet, dashing not plodding. It took a couple of seconds to figure out who was on-the-run. A very young mourning dove. I've never before seen a dove "on speed".

Low light, lots of dashing, urge to eat, pecking non-stop.  Maybe two days out of nest. Still has beginning feathers on top of head.

This kid is a survivor, no question about that.

Still lots of juvenile robins, this one with some pigmentation loss.

But there are still some youngsters in the "feed me, Dad" mode.

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Event this evening

Event this evening, mid-Manhattan Branch of New York Public Library, 455 Fifth Avenue (39th Street), 6:30pm, 6th Floor, a talk by the book team with pictures (power point), "Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City", John Hopkins University Press, yours' truly the photographer.
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The smarts

Smart chipmunk,  use cover tarp for protection, dash in and out undercover and don't end up as hawk lunch

Cluster of pigeons with similar markings. Watched male mate with female. All related?

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