Baby birds and bunnies in our North Texas backyard

I decided to do a post about all the baby critters that have come to our yard over the past 10 years.  This was prompted by baby mockingbirds, not yet ready to fledge, that we saw hopping on the ground yesterday.  My daughter put them safely back in their nesting area (blackberry bushes) and away from the dogs.  Both parents divebombed us until the babies were safely tucked away.  They are very protective.

We also have a nest of baby sparrows on our back porch now - I copied a pic from a previous blog of the parents building the nest earlier this spring.

My daughter checked (her annual ritual) and she found the first baby that had hatched!  He is safely back in his nest now.

When my daughter was younger she started feeding the sparrow babies on our porch harlequin bugs that she caught from the garden. 

After a violent storm last year we had purple martin babies thrown from their gourds onto the ground.

We picked them up and put them back in their nests.

In past years we have had a lot of killdeer nesting in our yard - This is a pic of my daughter with a courageous mother that refused to leave her nest. 


Here is another kildeer nest.  The babies hatched before our eyes!  They started running almost immediately!

Here is a nest of barn swallows she found - they were also safely put back in the nest - she loved them so much.

And finally - we continually have baby cottontail bunnies - some are orphaned due to unfortunate circumstances (we have dogs).

 

This was a bunny from a later year.