Opening Day

Eastern Bluebird after a scuffle, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, MA

A warm afternoon, two palm warblers and a yellow-bellied sapsucker. The frog calls loud enough to overcome traffic and leaf blower noise. And bird testosterone levels are through the roof. The image above was taken after a brief scuffle between two males over a female. He kept his beak open, without vocalizing, for quite a while. As for tree swallows:

Meanwhile, the first mockingbird in a couple of years to grace the fields of the Charles River Peninsula displays to no one in particular.

(For me these behaviors are birds at their most reptilian. )