Feathered Friday - Sightings of the Week

First we start out with a female copper headed blackbird. These gals are pretty malicious and like to lay eggs in other birds' nests so they raise their babies for them. Often the babies are much larger than the type of bird's nest they laid the eggs in. This results in their offspring kicking out the smaller birds, pretty bad for the smaller song birds.Here are a few sightings of the week for this #featheredfriday by @melinda010100

Some birds are smart and can recognize their eggs and will throw out the eggs. Other really small birds can't move their large eggs out of the nest so they end up building another nest over the evil changeling egg.

I stopped by to visit the monk parakeets that have established a colony on the power grid. Not many were out this time, I think they were too busy building up their nests for summer.

Here's where they build their nests. The power company allows them to get to a certain height before knocking them over for safety.

This mourning dove was wondering why I was taking photos of the monk parakeet nests.

I managed to catch a quick shot of a goldfinch. Then as usual it took off before I could get a better angle.

Plenty of geese are on all the lakes around here. Looks like a bumper crop this year.

Lots of herons are around here as well. This one looks like a great blue heron heading off to the lake for some bluegill.

Here's a new one for me, a great crested flycatcher. I see them often but rarely get a change for a photo.

It even flew up into the tree for a second shot. Hopefully these guys will keep the mosquitos down this year.

That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)