Mood "indigo"!

Tonight ,walking the dogs, I saw an indigo bunting for the first time this year. He was sitting up on the electric wires which run along the edge of the woods and lead to the irrigation pump for the peach orchards. This is where we have seen an indigo bunting, year after year, sitting on the wire singing for a mate. I'll have to look for him at the thistle feeder in our front garden where I would be able to see him in full sunlight and really get to appreciate his beautiful blue feathers.


And, guess what! We have purple martins for the first time! We have had a martin house in the field for years, with no success. My sister-in-law, who lives next door, claimed last week that she was seeing martins. She said the males arrived a couple of weeks ago, with the females following last week. I couldn't believe it, but sure enough.....our local martin expert Alan Jackson was riding by the other day, and stopped to let us know that yes, indeed, we have martins. We lowered the martin house and he showed me just which nests were martin nests and which were house sparrow nests, which we removed. I'm looking forward to learning first-hand about martins. I want to lower the house in a day or two to look for any eggs which might have been laid. Then we will hope to find out when the eggs hatch so we can inform Alan when to come to band the birds. But first, tonight I need to order a snake baffle to place around the pole to keep any local black snakes from eating martin babies. I'll keep you informed!