“WHAT? ANOTHER BIRDFEEDER?”

So said my neighbor as I carefully opened the huge box the UPS guy just delivered. “Well, the birds really like the old feeder where they can get in and eat safely, but you see, the squirrels pretty well demolished it a few years ago… and I just can’t get rid of it because the little guys love it so.” And they do. And the squirrels did. And they continue to demolish it every chance they get.

   

One very ambitious and determined old squirrel decided several years ago to chew his way thru the bottom of my birdfeeder – the one where he could not reach far enough thru the cage to reach the food. The one with a tray that caught the seed and did not let it spill as easily as he would have liked.

He must have broken his teeth crewing  enough for the drain holes to begin to rust enough for him to rip the metal a little more each time he worked on it. And he could chew on it by the hour! Eventually,  he had holes big enough that the seed just fell straight thru but he still wasn’t satisfied. I added a cut up pie plate to the feeder to catch the seed. That did not last long… not that I really expected it to last… but it has been interesting to watch him, or the next generation work on getting inside this cage. Yep, you read that right. This fellow wants to get INSIDE!

    

And so, it was time to buy a new feeder… but the old one is so much fun!

the BLACK AND WHITE of IT…

I finally broke down and replaced the birdfeeder my sister gave me years ago (my god has she been gone 10 years????). It is a Yankee Droll Flipper… Look it up on amazon. It has a little motor in it that turns the perch when the weight exceeds so many ounces, designed to spin squirrels off so they can’t eat all the food or destroy the feeder as they have done to so many of my feeders. Don’t get me wrong, I love squirrels, but I hate the damage they can do. Anyway, the thought is that one or even 2 Grackles can land on the perch, but more than that and the perch starts to move causing the birds to fly off. Now if you know blackbirds at all, you know they are like a mob, large numbers of totally unruly beasts… I won’t even mention their filthy habits like pooping on each other and pooping in the birdbath as they are drinking… but one can safely say they are not patient birds. As one or two birds would get tossed off the moving perch, 2 or 3 more would try to grab on being spun off in their turn while even more wait to grab on. Eventually there was this pile of blackbirds all fighting each other to get onto the feeder just to be launched off as fast as they hopped on. As they fought for the chance to be thrown off, I was reminded of a movie scene (no idea what movie) where a whole crowd of drunks gathered around a mechanical bull, eagerly paying their money just to get tossed to the ground in seconds as the next drunk occasionally climbed over the previous body to get on board.

All the birds in flight have been spun off the feeder or are trying to get on.

Now you might think this is mean… but the truth is, so much seed gets spilled in the process, the other birds, large and small, get to eat the seed off the ground (or the snow, as the case has been lately!) Obviously, no one gets hurt, and the smaller birds do get a good meal when the bigger guys are not around. And you get some good entertainment. Either Google Yankee Droll Flipper feeders or go to amazon. Both sites will give you a delightful video of the Flipper in action.

For those of you who might be interested in the birdbath deicer as seen on my blog, please note, it stops working when the temps are in the teens. You will get a thin skim of ice, but it thaws as soon as the temps get into the 20s. And for those of you who commented on the gathering of bluebirds at that birdbath, thanks for your comments. I have seen larger numbers of bluebirds from time to time, but not 11 in one little spot at once so I could get them all in one photo. I bet that will never happen again!

For days I have been hearing a huge roaring of geese as about a thousand or so fly over several times a day, settling in the fields about a tenth of a mile east of my house. i also have been hearing a lot of gunfire and finally figured out people are chasing the geese away from their property as that many geese are very noisy even just sitting on the ground looking for something to eat. The following pictures are of small sections of the field of snow geese… I could not get them all in the frame at one time or they just look like piles of snow out in a field. I managed to frighten the “guard” crew and they continued to circle over me until I left probably shouting back to the rest of the flock that I did or did not look dangerous, I was walking toward them, get up, move, or whatever. 

You see how close they are to the houses at the other end of the field… and I was standing in someone’s driveway taking most of these shots.

THE RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH

I have been so blessed these past 2 years to have a number of Red-Breasted Nuthatches in my yard. These little, perhaps even tiny, birds are so much fun to watch. They visit my feeders daily, but the fun is to see them running up and down the redbud outside my computer window. Very distracting! They are often in shots of other birds, but being so small – and cardinals being twice their size and so bright, they usually remain unseen. But, yesterday, as I was taking a few shots of something else outside, I turned around and was literally face to face with a little nuthatch. Did I mention they are brave little souls? The White breasted Nuthatch will fly away if you are in their visibility range, or if one of the cats moseys by… the Carolina Wrens will go up higher or to a bush about 30 feet away and start ‘scolding’ at the top of its lungs. But the Nuthatch just sits quietly and watches. Perhaps it is curious, too. These shots were taken from a distance of 5 to 3 feet away. Punkie and Spook followed me out into the yard to see what was happening. I was thrilled to see Punk come out, but that is another story. He has been quite ill. Anyway, I digress, as usual. My guess is that this is a female as the breast is quite pale. I love that blue color. But, there she sat, and posed, don’t you think?

With Spook under the feeders, but not really interested… and Punkie right behind me. He is showing his age.

And an old shot for size comparison… find this feeder and compare with the size of the cardinals.

a CONCLAVE of CARDINALS

WELL, OK, NOT EXACTLY… but there were quite a few out there this morning in the sun, having breakfast. AT one point I counted 7 males on the feeders or waiting their turn in the Redbud, but could only get 6 in one shot. It seemed one was always in flight as I snapped the picture.  Now if you look real closely and count females, how many cardinals can you find?

OH, MY ACHING BACK!

WELL FOLKS, the garden is started. The peas ( first planting) are in the ground and their climbing strings are up. Most of the onions are in the ground... got a few left, but ran out of space. So I will figure out another place next week. I wanted to buy some new potting soil, but it was raining so hard yesterday, I gave up on that idea. We got an inch and a half. Like most garden centers, even WalMart, the potting soil is kept outside. If it rains, that entire area is getting wet. Seems rather stupid to me. It's during a good rain that folks want to go shopping, but all the tools, bags of soil, fertilizers, etc are out in the rain. dumb. Good thing the cat food is under the roof! LOL! The daffodils are beautiful, the forsythia has started to open. Today was not only a T-shirt day, it was a sleeveless T-shirt day! Temps in the 70s again. The house smells so nice with fresh air from open windows and vases of daffodils. The feeders are filled as the little guys are arriving here in droves on their way north. And I can barely walk. sigh. The carport is clean... as my little neighbor would say, I "blow dried" it. Potting bench is cleaned off and ready for use. Garden tools are cleaned and ready to go. John (Deere) is gassed up. Covers are off the Adirondacks. Watch and see it snow!
OK, heading to the recliner and I am not moving for a while.

The JOY OF A SUNNY DAY!

It managed to get up to the low 50s today. The sun was bright and the winds were minimal. What a joy to be able to be outdoors for a couple hours and not be frozen half to death. We did start out cold, 28 degrees and a heavy frost. You can see the frost on the azaleas in the background, and if you look even further, you can see snow in the field on the other side of the trees across the street, in the picture of the hawk looking for breakfast this morning.

The cardinals, finches, and sparrows hid out in the thicker bushes until he left, as he has learned to dive bomb the camellia next to the feeders out front. He usually starts swooping the ground to get a sparrow or a junco. But, after about a half an hour, the little guys get brave and come back. With 13 feeders in one area, the Bird Restaurant is quite a popular spot. See the bright copper tray behind the feeders? It is a hanging birdbath. The first year I had one, I tried it as a feeder, but I soon discovered the moisture seems to do something with the seed – there is NO drainage – and the copper tray soon “rusted” into a mess of heavily corroded metal. I have no doubt it was probably pretty toxic and even the birds stopped eating out of it. I guess they figured it out, too.

Also, birds need to drink. Imagine that! So, every morning when it is real cold, I go out and flip the tray over and refill it with fresh water. I am barely back in the house before the little guys are in the water getting a drink. On slow days, they sit and peck at the ice. Nothing like making a body feel shamed, right? So, out I go with fresh water.

The littlest birds seem to prefer the tray to the bigger ground level feeder out back.  Maybe because Spook likes to drink out of it, too? However, the larger birds, like Robins, prefer the ground level feeder.

The best shot I never got (the one that got away?) was of a pair of cardinals drinking out of the Buddha birdbath. Papa sat on the rim and watched while mama cardinal had a nice long drink. By the time I got the camera, well… you know – they were gone.

The snow is still on the ground in places. I love to see the pansies peeking thru the snow. The Color Purple…

The boys spent a little time out in the sun, but napped back in their box. I opened the flap door to the cat’s box, but dropped it again as the sun went down. In spite of the warmth of the day, the boys still chose to spend much of it stretched out on their heating pad… I think they really love the bigger one where they don’t have to curl up on top of each other, tho they still do at night. They have slept that way for years.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

24 LITTLE HOURS

But no sun,

And the flowers,

Are covered in snow,

Yes, I said snow…

Yesterday was an ordinary clear winter day, cold, temps in the 30s, but the sun was out to give the illusion of warmth. As the day wore on, the cloud cover moved in with the promise of snow. The heater light was left on all day in the greenhouse, the cats stayed snuggled in their box on the heating pad with short trips out to go potty or eat. The birds were busy stocking up on food as they so often do just before a storm.

Sometime after I went to bed the snow started and the ground was covered by 2 AM when I made my nightly trip down the hall. The snow was sticking to the leaves and branches… it was a winter wonderland all over again.

For some reason I woke up early this morning… it was one of those days when all I did was think about what I had to do, so I decided to get up and get started. It was a good thing, because WBOC TV called just as I pulled on my jeans, so outside I went with the phone and ruler to officially measure our 2 inches of snow.

After that I came in and grabbed the camera, a can of cat food, and a dish of crunchies, and headed outside again. The camellias had started to open, again, and, as you can see, have some frost bite on their petals. But I love the color contrast with the red and white and the dark green made darker by the presence of the snow.

The van was covered, but the road was clear – well, as clear as black ice can be called clear. It was pretty slippery, but the traffic has not slowed down.

The snow has started again. We probably won’t get that much more (famous last words, eh?) All I can do is be grateful we don’t have as much as some other places that got socked again, and grateful that spring really will be here before too long. But, I must also remember, it always snows on the daffodils, and they are barely thru the ground.