Orioles!

 This time Paul saw them first and pointed them out to me.

We have a picnic table in the back yard out by the fire pit that for whatever reason became the resting spot for a brush pile. We'll have to go make a closer inspection to try to find out why the family found it so fascinating. Were they nesting in it? Was it full of tasty bugs? While they flitted all around the back and side yard, or at least those places are the ones visible from the living/dining/kitchen area, the table seems to be where they keep returning to. 

Paul was looking at the back yard out the back door, presumably finding excuses not to mow the grass till next weekend since it's not all a foot high yet, when he noticed one, then several, finally settling on five: two parents and three fledglings. The fledglings were my first view of them, and could have been any of a variety of birds, colored much like yellowish sparrows or warblers, just larger. Once I saw a parent, doubt was erased. Somewhere our yard had supported a new oriole family.

While we both stood at the back door and watched them, they came as close as the back steps, the step railings, the flowering milkweeds just past the steps, and the deck railing. They disappeared into and emerged from the large apple tree, the former raspberry patch, the cranberry bushes, and of course, the "cherrybird" trees. Soon, however, robins appeared and chased them out of the cherries, their own fledglings more agile now and plucking their own. 

The chipmunk made its own appearance under the hostas, ducking back in almost immediately as if the songbirds made too much of a threat. It might have been one of the young orioles which seemed to pluck a bug from one of the hosta buds which scared it back into hiding.

Paul retreated for his morning shower, and I dug the camera out when I noticed one parent had returned to the table of brush, perched and singing. I carefully opened the house side door and found a fairly clean spot on the storm door to shoot through. I gave up shooting before the oriole gave up singing. I didn't get any of the young birds, but while they came very close to the house, any movement on our parts then would have scared them away, so no point in trying then.

With  my morning yard work done, once I have my own shower, now that I'm rested, I'll in turn be out and about in the car. I'm going to bring the camera along, just in case. Because of course I will.