Entertainment

The cats and I were rather startled early this afternoon when birds kept coming up to our front windows, fluttering and beating against the glass.  These were larger than our usual hummingbirds, but in flight, I was not sure what they were.  But, a bit later I witnessed these scenes:

A female goldfinch clings to the window frame from the outside.  There's not much of a sill to these casements, but goldfinches are known for their perching and balancing skills.

She was completely oblivious to me and my camera, just a few feet on the other side of the glass from her.  The afternoon sun must have been creating good reflections, so it was as though I was looking at her through one of those surveillance mirrors.

A male goldfinch showed up on the hummingbird feeder and she flitted up to join him.  

The hummers were rather disturbed by these goldfinches perched on their feeder, and flitted about in panic - too fast for me to capture with my camera.  But one of the hummers got brave enough to use the feeder two windows over, and eventually, as the goldfinches carried on their little conversation, the hummers started to use this feeder as well.  You can just see the tail of one of them on the far side of the feeder in this next photo.

All of this activity captivated the furry members of the house.  Lu watched patiently for a while....

Then he slowly approached.  He was very, very stealthy, and again, they were oblivious...

 

...until he leaped up at them.  Then the male flew into the nearby sourwood and eventually left altogether.  But the female kept hanging around, letting me continue to photograph her in her breeding season plumage.  Here she is on the other feeder.

We've had hummingbird feeders on these windows since we moved here almost five years ago.  This is the first time we've seen the finches on them.