Nesting Mockingbird

We had noticed a bunch of sticks on the ground under our tree out front, but there are always sticks and leaves and poky little flower stems and then messy little berries falling off of that tree so we didn't think much about it until I saw a mockingbird in our flower bed picking up one of the sticks.

She picked it up, dropped it, picked it up again, dropped it again, and then picked it up one last time and flew up into the tree. Where she was building a nest. I have never seen birds building nests in our tree, just dumb mourning doves trying to build a nest on top of our outside light, and then there was the time they were trying to build a nest on top of Keith's ladder that he left laying against the house for months and months. He is very bad about putting things away after he uses them. VERY bad.

And then there was the mourning dove who built a nest in my bike basket a few years ago when I wasn't riding it around all that much.

But this is the first time I've ever noticed a bird, and not a mourning dove, nesting in our front yard tree. She must not have realized that a cat (Lucy) also nests in that tree so to speak, and now she flies around and chatters and screeches at Lucy whenever she sees her in the tree.

Above is the nesting bike basket dove of 2009.

And this is the mockingbird and her nest.

And Lucy watching the mockingbird.

Lucy has ventured pretty far up into the tree in search of that bird because, well, that is just what cats do. I do hope that she doesn't disturb the nest when the baby birds are born, the nest is very far up there, but cats are also very determined.

Here are our new front yard flower beds, the one with grass still in it is not finished of course, but Keith found a tree at Walmart yesterday, some kind of ash that will have big shady leaves, for only $20.00. I've been nagging him all morning to go get another one for the back yard before they are all gone.

This is our climbing black eyed susan that at first I thought wasn't going to survive, but now is happily winding its way up the trellis, it's almost like you can watch it grow each day.

I'm liking these new flower beds a lot, and a big part of that liking is that it makes the have to mow each week part of the yard much much smaller! We are too cheap to pay a gardener and Keith never seems to have the time anymore, so yard mowing is my chore and the smaller area to mow, the better.