Ray Dunakin said:
This is kind of off topic but I had something exciting happen today…
I’ve been feeding a wild bird in our yard. It’s a black phoebe, which is a member of the flycatcher family. He started coming around last summer, when he saw me feeding mealworms to the lizards on the railroad. At the time, he seemed to be interested in how these lizards were getting a free meal, so I tossed a couple worms where he could see them, and he swooped down and got them. He’s been coming to me ever since, and today I finally got him to take them from my hand!
We also have black phoebes that nest on our rafters under the roof overhang every year.
“Swoop” is the right word, and that’s what I call him. (She is “Swipe”…, Swoop’s wife.) They are very acrobatic and love to nest near swimming pools where they continually swoop down and pick the bugs off the water’s surface.
They are also really cool looking with a “mohawk” hair cut.
BTW, remember the movie Rango, I have a female lizard on the railroad who, on hot days, does the “water dance.” She will literally run over to where I am watering and jump up and down on her hind legs in the stream from the hose.
One day I’ve got to get it on video, if I ever get a cell phone.
