My Florida Tropical Garden

Here's another winter migration bird, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, one of the smallest songbirds in North America. Found this one while I was outside refilling the bird feeders. This one is a female because it lacks the ruby crown. Their breeding habitat is in the forests across Canada, Alaska, and western United States. They then migrate to the southern United States and Mexico. While observing this bird I was hearing this unusual wing flicking sound during flight, and apparently this is common with Kinglets. It was attracted to our American Beautyberry plants which now have gorgeous bright purple berry clusters all over them.

The winter migration is on and we have some company. No it's not my family visiting for the holidays, I'm talking about a small "tournament" of Chipping Sparrows making a buffet out of our fresh bird seed. There's probably about 6 or 7 sparrows in this group I've been seeing almost everyday. Along with the chipping sparrows, we still have the titmice and cardinals.

Florida is experiencing an unusual hard freeze this early in December, which could mean a very cold and damaging winter in the near future. Last night the temps dropped down to 27-29 degrees for a couple hours here. Factor in the wind chill, and they say it feels like 20 degrees outside. BRRRRR! Several plants are still covered with blankets and my container plants are temporarily sitting in the garage. We're suppose to have another hard freeze tonight! That will make 3 freezing nights so far this season and it's only December 14th. I'm hoping we won't have too many garden casualties due to freeze kill. Though I'm sure the garden shops will be very busy in the spring when floridians will have to replace their landscape.

It's been awhile since I've added a photo so here's one I took today of the chipping sparrows. Enjoy! :)