Groove-billed Ani

 

Late summer.  It’s hot.  It’s quiet.  We still have the usual suspects at the feeders.  Grackles, sparrows, doves.  Only the occasional cardinal or thrasher now.  Not as many as in the winter.  There is probably enough natural food for everyone.  The feeders aren’t that big a deal like in the winter.

 

Then we hear that sound.  A groove billed ani.  Its call is a distinctive chortle, unlike any of the other birds around.  First, we hear it.  Then we see it.  It flies its wobbly floppy flight into the tree behind our fence.  Then another.  Then another.  A whole gang of anis shows up; eight in total.  Mostly, they stay obscured in the foliage of the tree.  One lands on the wire.

 

I zoom in.

 

Groove-billed Anis are sometimes described as looking disheveled.

 

Disheveled.  Yes.  But charming.

 

The anis are here in our neighborhood for two or three hot months, then they’re gone to Mexico, Central and South America for the rest of the year.