Battle of the Birds

Let me get these out of the way so we can get to the gravy:

Armleder Park is hosting some seriously big ass tadpoles.
They're like brown plums with tails.

Remember the mallard nest in one of my recent posts?
I think this is a sign that things ended badly.
(Excuse my dangling lens cap)

I am not well-versed in post hatching egg shells. Was this a predator's work?
The female mallard was nowhere near...I am hoping that she was off teaching a swimming class with her new offspring.
Calling the Science Chimp!


Okay, enough of that.
Now to the exciting stuff...
This morning, I was watching the tree swallows go back and forth over the yard.
And soon, the male purple martin joined in, and they both ganged up and kept him from entering the gourd. (These birds REALLY like gourds!)
I watched for as long as I could, but I felt tortured.
So I went outside and took down the gourd, which was hanging from the purple martin house. I then placed it on a shepherd's hook at the far end of the yard (in the place my bluebird house was) and stepped back to watch.
The TRES then began to guard both the gourd AND the house.
I decided to give up, apologized to all three birds, put the gourd back up, put up the original blue bird house and went back in.
An hour later, I looked outside, and saw this:

The purple martin was sitting on the house!
And the TRES were flying around in confusion.
I held my breath...could I have my cake and eat it, too?
The TRES then flew to the BB house, looking like they were admitting defeat.
I don't want to jinx anything, but if things go well, I could feasibly have both purple martins and TRES.

I stood there, transfixed, as the PUMA did his croaking calls.
You can click here to listen to the two different vocalizations that martins make.
I will try to be up early tomorrow morning to listen for his Dawn Song.
Things are going to get interesting again.
Update: I forgot to mention that our first hummingbird showed up today. I saw him/her from the back for about 1.5 seconds, and didn't get a picture. Maybe tomorrow.


Cute Isabelle thing:
Isabelle makes up bird names. Today, she was using this empty paper towel tube as a scope, and she said she saw a "Picture-taking Mommy bird", a "TV watching Lorelei bird", and a "Computer working Daddy bird". I just think that's cute.