Yard Birds

Several weeks ago I added to the garden a cast iron soup bowl, two granite soup bowls and an old copper kitchen bowl to provide water for any birds which happen by.

The water has proven to be quite an attraction. From 4:00 to 5:30 or so the birds come by in increasing numbers to drink and bathe. At one point yesterday we had several Mynahs, two mature Brazilian Cardinals, three immature same, two Japanese White Eyes, two Spotted Doves, a couple Zebra Doves, an adult Shama, another immature, several Common Waxbills, and three Java Sparrows.

While I have seen flocks of 15-20 Javas elsewhere, I had never seen other than a pair in the yard, so three is a new record. The third appeared noticeably after the first two, which have been showing up as a pair for a number of days.

So far this fall I haven't seen a Pacific Golden Plover in the yard, tho there are several charging around the grass at Pearl Ridge Elementary School. Yesterday Valerie raised the ugly possibility that all my gardening i.e. replacing cruddy grass with beds of succulents may have made the yard less interesting to the Plover.