Chowing down

Even though were into June - nearly the middle, and despite what forecasters predicted, we've had only a few brief days of extraordinary heat. Enough to bring all the iris in my garden out. They are remarkable as are most flowers this year. Lush, abundant, magnificent in colour.

But because it's been cool, at least that's what I assume, the little birds are back at my feeders. This morning, the bright cadmium yellow bits of sunlight were singing and playing among the high branches and landing on all the feeders devouring seed.

They were joined by several finches, a few chickdees, though only a few and a couple of jays, a white-breasted nuthatch, several woodpeckers, both hairy and downie, red wing blackbirds, a couple of mourning doves with their soft cooing and grackles. My lone starling is nurturing her babes at the moment. She's inhabited the owl box,and I'll have a real cleaning job to do once her brood has fledged. Starlings are the messiest housekeepers, worse even than I am.

Several swallows are also sitting. Six of the boxes are full. And there are ongoing hummer wars as two ruby-throated males duke it out over what I think is only one female... maybe two. Those feeders are closely guarded and give me lots of entertainment when the battles are in full force. I've been narrowly missed by a couple of buzzing missiles while seated on the deck trying to enjoy coffee, but dodging fast flyers instead.

Ah spring!

Sad though that while the cool weather has meant I get to see more of some of my favourite birds, the farmers are concerned about crops and storms continue to plague many places around the globe...once again making me wonder what's down the road with climate change and can we do enough soon enough? I'm not as optimistic as I once was.

But for this evening, after a long day at the computer making charts and notes and agendae for meetings, I'm going to enjoy the birds's songs and their busy flight to gather a few more seeds before dark.

Have a super evening.