Yellow Warbler nest

Brown-headed Cowbirds often lay their eggs in the open, cuplike nests of Yellow Warblers. We actually saw the Warbler fly off from the nest.

"The female builds the nest over a period of about 4 days. First she builds a cup of grasses, bark strips, and plants such as nettles. She places plant fibers, spiderwebs, and plant down around the outside. The inner cup is lined with deer hair, feathers, and fibers from cottonwood, dandelion, willow, and cattail seeds. If a cowbird lays its eggs in a Yellow Warbler’s nest, the warbler often begins building a new nest directly on top of the old one, abandoning both its own eggs and the cowbird’s." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow_Warbler/lifehistory

Instead of starting on Day 9 of our 13-day birding trip to South Texas, I thought I had better deal with a couple of walks I went on in the last few days. One was a birding walk and the other a botany outing. I usually miss most of these, but made an extra effort to get out with friends for a few hours. I will also have some photos from today, 13 June 2019, after being invited to spend some time at a friend's acreage this morning, followed by a short drive along a few of my usual roads. They should be somewhat 'better' images : )

The 9 photos added tonight were taken in Calgary on 9 June 2019, when I went with friends on a birding walk down in Weaselhead. It turned out to be a much longer walk than expected, around 5 km, but felt further than that. This walk always starts with a long hill to walk down and the same hill to face at the end of the walk.

It was rather quiet bird-wise, but we were happy to see a Calliope Hummingbird. I have posted a couple of shots, just for my own record.

I almost didn't go on this walk, as the weather forecast said there might be rain. Fortunately, we were lucky. Our weather has been its usual crazy self - snow was even mentioned in the forecast for this week, but it has changed to rain and maybe some thunderstorms. The ground is so dry, so we need all the moisture we can get. It rained when I was out this afternoon - for about five minutes.