Some of the locals have been having a hard time getting enough food this winter. You can get water easily enough, a few hundred feet downhill, at the brook, but locating something to eat is hard when the ground is covered with ice, as it has been for most of February. We’ve had some really good storms.
But when you’re a bird, snow and ice can be trouble.
We used to have cats, and when you have cats, they tend to regard a bird feeding area as their personal buffet table. So in our cat days, we couldn’t bear to put out seed or suet. But the Calico Sisters have died. In their absence, for the first time in many years, we are feeding the birds.
Within twenty-fours hours of installing the feeder, chickadees and titmice had found the food.
The feeder, and a suet cage, have been up for a few weeks now. The first visitors start to arrive at dawn, and there are birds around all day, until dark sends them to their nighttime resting places.
Our friend the Chickadee. Now that the days are getting longer, they don’t just say, “Dee-dee”. They’ve started to sing their springtime two note call, a sweet sound to hear in the late winter. A sound that tells you that yes, the days really are longer, and that yes, the season is changing.
Underneath the feeder, ground birds scratch in the leaves. Scratching is a good job for the sparrow clan. It’s also a job that the wren family takes to with ease.
Sparrows are happy to come to the feeder, too. Here’s one coming in for a landing.
Mr. Cardinal has to scrunch his way on to the narrow rim. Doesn’t he look good in his red?
When the weather turns foul, gray, monochromatic, the hungry just keep coming.
The feather is one of the great miracles of animal life on this planet.
The shape of the diving, downflying bird was unexpected.
Thanks, camera, for showing us something we couldn’t have otherwise discerned.
Nice piece, Tom.
We always have a feeder filled with neighborhood birds. It is a harbinger of spring to hear some soothing sounds.