Ok, you can let go now, they’ll stay on. 
It’s a bird jumping into a plant in a bucket, fluttering in the fresh new growth, and jumping back out.
Recently watered so it’s probably a little cooler in there in the potato shade.
I’m thinking the bird likes it the same way the boy likes running between the hedges.
Pure exuberance.
Or he could just be chasing a bug.
Or it could be a sparrow
Hey Tom
They must have displaced the natives around here long ago.
Crows, sparrows, pigeons, seagulls and the very occasional hawk. Same as it ever was in this neighborhood.
And hummingbirds.
Used to see blue jays. Almost never anymore.
1 Pigeons
1 Sparrows
3 Crows
4 Hummingbirds
5 Seagulls (transiting)
6 Blue jays
6 Hawks
I actually like potato birds. They’re cute and kinda spunky.
I saw a crow raid a robin’s nest in my yard a few weeks ago. One of the few nests that I didn’t have a camera pointed at.
Hey Mike
I like crows, but I haven’t seen that happen, which is hard to love, I s’pose. Unfeathered babies writhing slowly on the ground once in a while, knocked or fallen from the nest. The last one I saw someone placed in a little velvet lined box and set on the top of the hedge. I left it there and an hour later the bird and box were gone. Another urban mystery. 
Hey, you guys have jogged my memory. Doves and black birds (don’t know if they were blackbirds) are kinda gone now, too. They were probably 3-ish at one time.
And because the coast, still plenty of seabird and wetlands types just south of here. There are pelican squadrons I enjoy watching fly/fish, regular pipers and little baby seagulls (pipers of some kind probably, snow white puffballs with short legs) that move as one at the edge of the surf as it hisses up the sand and withdraws (super smooth without bobbing just like water!)
The other day I saw something I’d never seen in the neighborhood before. A beautiful hawk on our side yard plucking a pigeon.
People put out seed here copiously and indiscriminately. I am therefore I be. 
This is behind a register or paywall but maybe there is actually a potato bird - or at least something somewhere folks call that:
Plenty of these at the beach sometimes.
One good of which deserves another. 
They have a really sharp cry.
I live in Wisconsin. With all of the lakes here, we have lots of seagulls and terns. And in the Horicon March, there is even a large flock of pelicans!
I have nothing against crows per se, but they are opportunist birds and will go after eggs and chicks. This past winter, I saw a group of them harassing a nesting pair of Great Horned Owls in the pine trees across the street. I don’t know if they were successful or not.
As for the “potato bird,” my search turned up mostly how to make a Chinese birds nest soup. But I did find a reference to a bird in South America. But I can’t seem to find it now.
Wisconsin has a lot going for it. I have some good friends living there I haven’t visited yet. Shouldn’t good friends invite you?
Can crows be seen as wolves, or coyotes, of the bird world? Or maybe there’s a better match.
My cursory search led me to believe birds don’t like raw potatoes. So I can still enjoy their dives into the bucket as joie de vivre, I guess. 
Those terns here are called something like ‘perfect’ or ‘unique’ or 'absolute.† They floated a platform near a big nesting site to assist in the brooding, which was nice.
Pelicans are way cool, imho…
† ‘elegant’
These are an invasive species and should not be allowed to strip good strong 
American potato plants.
Go back to Europe 
peccant birdz. 
If you ever want to come up to Wisconsin, I can put you up. (We’ll see if I can put up with you. 
)
Fall is a magical time here. The changing color of the trees. And the previously mentioned Horicon Marsh is a major Canada Goose stopover. It is not uncommon to see flock to 5 to 10 THOUSAND geese returning to the marsh in the evening after feeding in the area fields all day.
Thanks, Mike! Sounds a beauty.
Wow, they sure made work of those leaves! So far they haven’t touched my potatoe buckets. But then, they’re right next to the two bird feeders that have plenty of seeds for all.
Yeah, kind of surprised me. Hurt my feelings a little. Hey, cut that out!
