birds

And dachshunds generally prove somewhat useless in getting them out.

Bird is the word.

Update, 10:09 a.m.: Animal Rescue League on its way.

At 8:42 a.m., butterh urgently tweeted from his Dorchester apartment:

Bird in my apt. Live adult, injured, ARL not open - What do I do?! We're freaking each other out. Need help.

Cyn Donnelly replied:

A towel or light blanket over the bird will let you pick it up and put it in a box or bin until someone can get it.

Shaw Pong posts audio from her recent recordings of birds in Jamaica Plain, from the Arboretum to Franklin Park.

B. MacLean photographed a hummingbird at one of the feeders in his backyard near the Blue Hills Reservation.

Copyright B. MacLean. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Attack bird lurks, awaits next victim.

From Citizens Connect:

A very aggressive bird (bluejay maybe) attacks anything, human or dog, that comes through this part of the Harborwalk between 40 Battery and Union Wharf. Can animal control do something about it?

Shaw Pong Liu records and describes a goldfinch singing near Bussey Brook in the Arnold Arboretum.

John Halamka reports all the extra bird food he's put out and the heated bird bath have attracted plenty of birds to his Wellesley backyard this winter - and not just of the birdseed-eating variety:

I looked up and saw a cardinal eating safflower. I looked up again and saw a Red-Shouldered hawk eating the cardinal.

Steve Borichevsky photographs a male Baltimore oriole putting the moves on a female - without success.

Channel 5 reports the National Park Service is telling ravens on the Cape: Nevermore. Workers will build fake piping-plover nests in the Cape Cod National Seashore and fill them with hard-boiled chicken eggs laced with crowicide to kill the birds going after endangered plovers.

We went to Echo Bridge in Newton today, and it really is amazing - you can basically whisper and hear your voice echo back from the other side of the Charles (so you can imagine what it was like when an exuberant kidlet decided to yell). Up river, near the old mill, we spotted the above large bird (so for those of you who know the distance, yes, it pays to have a zoom lens). Anybody know what it is?

As yesterday afternoon's storm wound down, I drove up to the top of Millennium Park in West Roxbury, figuring there might be a rainbow. There was! Split in two, with one end landing just left of the high school and the other end between the VA hospital and the Great Blue Hill. Alas, it was just a little too faint for my camera to do justice, so no photos, but I did take some shots of this twittering bird, which seemed to be enjoying the wet road. Anybody know what it is?

Steve: The only goldfinch to show up in our yard this year is the one that died on the front steps overnight.

Cool photo of a female cardinal in mid-flight at Belle Isle Marsh.

Jody, who took the above photo today, reports that that rule is: If you see a bird like this on a day like today, by the time you run upstairs to get your camera with the zoom lens, it will have flown away. She also has a request for her readers for when summer rolls along.

Peter Oehlkers videos the wren that got into his house yesterday when somebody (he's not naming names) left the basement door open.

Mockingbirds dive bomb pedestrians in Powerderhouse Square:

... i have been attacked twice this week when passing through the walkway area in the center of the rotary (nearest the funeral home) by a crazed bird, and i also witnessed a bird attack a dog over by the bus shelter by broadway. ...

Spotted this morning at the edge of the marsh between the West Roxbury Education Complex and the VFW Parkway.

This photo doesn't really do justice to the bizarre thing those of us on the Rte. 9 side of our office building saw around 4 p.m. - hundreds of seagulls or terns pinwheeling above the Sudbury Reservoir. Sure, seagulls aren't that uncommon out in Southborough, but not so many, and not so many all flying in circles together. Gah, is it: DEATH FROM ABOVE? I just looked out my window: There aren't as many of them now, but the ones that are there are still flying round and round, just waiting for me to try to get to my car ...