Spring seems to have finally arrived, at least by the standards of my neighbors’ fruit tree of uncertain heritage.  (It has never born fruit of which I have been aware, and I assumed that it was a cherry tree, but they tell me it produced a single fruit several years ago that was not a cherry.)  At any rate, on March 30-31 it attracted a fairly steady following of chickadees, Bushtits and at least one Orange-crowned warbler. Strangely enough, over the course of several hours on two different days I only saw two hummingbirds (both Rufous hummingbirds) access the tree and neither stayed very long.

The birds seemed drawn to the flower petals on the tree and I at first assumed that they were accessing nectar, but then I rationalized that, given the species of birds involved, they might be gathering insects from within the blossoms.  However careful observation led me to believe that my initial theory was probably correct.  And judging by detailed photos of some of the birds, I think we can safely add the birds I mentioned to the list of pollinators.

So, without further comment, here are some of the photos I took…