Birds you've seen today

This morning I saw a little flock of about six Anna's hummingbirds all chasing one another around the neighbor's tree.  They look like a little swarm of bumble bees and they have that very distinctive little chirp.

 I have birds inside and outside, inside I have "Ruby" whose from the South Pacific (Indonesia) area, he's an Lory, an sub-species of Parrot, an much smaller bird but is brilliant red and has dashing "blue feathers" on his sides and in his tail. Ruby "talks" ..his previous owners gave him to my kids when they got an night job and had to sleep days. He loves "jokes" I mean he'll just Ha, Ha, up a storm..I'm teaching him to say, " A chicken crossed the road,,,Ha-Ha.Ha...BAM!  He gives an pretty mean "wolf whistle" to the girls passing by my house ever so once-in-an while also amoung other things he does and says. . He had an yellow cockatiel that was next to him named "Princess" at one time, but she died one year, we think it had something to do with her egg laying. It affected "Ruby" quite a bit in his talking. He just loves to boogie and dance to music though. Still does that. A real "party" bird. We got two parakeets now, besides Ruby...one is yellow and the other is blue, and I think he thinks they are "his" off-spring. He seems terribly proud to see them flying when we let them loose occasionally and they have no qualms about coming up to him. Ruby is only about two hands full and beleive me my cats, and my dogs stay away from him and don't pick on him in the least. He can hold his own!!!  That's for the inside birds, outside we have beautiful blue-jays that live in our area and "Eagles" amoung small birds, I think perhaps sparrows.Before we built in our back patio, in the wintertime we use to put out bird feed when it snowed, and it was an absoulute "mad house" of fluttering birds. All kinds, I'd have to be up to snuff on knowing all the varities before I could tell them all to you. But one of the "Eagles" landed that day and just took my breathe way it was so huge, it looked like it's wing span took the whole end of this patio...about 6 to 8 feet. We usually see them way way up high in the air circling the sky, they live down the street a bit from me in some huge and old pine trees. One time one flew over the edge of my house roof and I honestly thought it was an small private airplane coming over from the shadow on the ground, when I took notice and looked up. But because the housing industry is rapidly coming out this way, we are starting to lose them to happier hunting grounds in more remote areas closer to  Mt. Hood. I have raised ducks, and quail, and red-necked pheasants, whom as babies peeped out their cages and I could hear them but never see them to catch them, well one of them grew up and flew down one day and paid it's respects and was just the most beautiful bird. We have an small old abandoned house near by and I think he must of grown up over there. Where my husband worked they had an small bird that if it saw you going by use to go out in the gravel lane and would kind of dance in circles like it was "injured" to throw you off from it's nest in the trees...I don't remember what species he said it was, but it was an different sort.  They have taught me an great deal about "life" these animals of mine. Take "Ducky" and "Sir Drake" raised from babies, my dad laughed his head off as one "Easter" I was outside watering my garden or doing something when he saw them running under my long house robe as if I were their "mother"..trying to keep up with me...stumbling over each other. Ducky was laying "eggs' and had an bunch of them she had been sitting that fateful night when I heard her sqawking and the next day I found her, her neck bitten through so badly she couldn't raise it and I knew she was dying...though she had vallallantly defended her nest and the intruder (later I found out an Racoon) never got to one of her eggs. I took her inside and "Sir Drake" followed me in, and I called my dad and I asked him if he'd come over and kill her to put her out of her pain. He wasn't to happy about that one. But I sat there watching them as I was talking to him and "Sir Drake" went up to her and make some soft "cooing" sounds gently to her and nudged her broken neck and, crossed his head over hers and then she raised her wings as if she were going to take off in flight and laid back down as she had died. He crossed his head over hers and I cried my heart out watching this sentiment to each other. I put him outside and for awhile he laid on the eggs but eventually gave up, so I thought they most likely didn't have an chance without "Ducky" there or an incubator. I took him down to Blue Lake not to far away, off the Columbia River and set him free with the other ducks About an month or two later we went up to the boat ramps and an duck with another duck came up an flew near me and stopped and I didnt' think so much about it, but this duck didn't seem to want to leave like most of them, it was fully grown with green bands around it's neck also, and I think maybe it could of been "Sir Drake" with another mate maybe...the racoon was ran over by an car later that summer also, but I gave up the baby ducks for Easter. We didn't have as many little ones (kids) around anyway.  Sir Drake and Ducky taught me that animals aren't just dumb bird things that don't have feelings and an sense of moral code amoung their own species. Their devotion to their eggs I wish more "parents" had for their children these days. So goes for the stories right now , I have many of them though.