Early last evening the juncos were extremely active. Someone set up trilling, so I went diving into all my resources (Peterson Birding by Ear, eBird, Ontario breeding bird atlas) & narrowed it down to Chipping sparrow (habitat, sighting on the Spit) or precocious junco.
Yesterday morning was good for construction. Amassing construction material is not easy. You have to go all the way out to the end of the black locust trees, and you just know they don't support your weight, because you're not a young chick who hasn't figured this out, you're a fully mature male Coopers. So you step onto a slender branch and lose your balance and it's a full body workout(feet, beak, wings, tail, and when you're a Coopers you can really move that tail) until you finally find just the right stick which you then carry to the nest. Then you come back and do it again. And again. And again. Meanwhile your mate has deigned to carry one stick to the nest. She mostly sits in the sun. She is getting a little heavy, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on the part of the watcher.
