Daily visitors

Year round I leave out one or two small sunflower seed feeders and a niger seed feeder. There are some birds that continue to visit regularly.

This female downy woodpecker is one of the daily visitors. There seem to be two pairs of downies that come. This one is hiding a seed in a crevice in the bark of the Siberian elm tree that holds the feeder.

Others come only while their young still are following around begging to be fed, blue jays and grackles in particular.

One of the reasons I keep the feeders up, though there is usually lots of natural food available for all the birds in summer, is that I get such amusement from the antics of the babies. It strikes me as very funny watching the huge baby blue jays - bigger and fatter than their beleaguered parents, following around, wings fluttering, bleating pitifully. Grackles seem to be even longer in their maturation...it was well into August when I watched one optimistic baby follow its parent who hopped up to a larger feeder, brought down a seed, gave it to the baby and then moved off. The baby cried out, dropping the seed and flew after its parent.

Goodness I thought - that's patience. Even though grackles in a horde, don't endear themselves to me... this little one-act play really caught my fancy and made me laugh. There are so many little things like that every day to watch and enjoy in nature... even watching this industrious woodpecker was fun. She took several seeds and stuck them in cracks in the bark. Now I wonder if she'll remember where they are in a blizzard?

Morning song

Every morning as I let the dogs out for their morning ablutions, I hear the most delightful birdsong, twittering, warbling, trilling interrupted by the occasional raucous yell from a blue jay or crow.

While the dogs are checking out who visited in the night, I refill and put out the bird feeders. This morning a young jay greeted me with "What took you so long, the sun's been up for hours?" Yes I was a bit late and was scolded by many blackbirds as well..

After about an hour, while I sit with my coffee, share toast with the dogs and read email, the deck is lined with tiny birds... I couldn't resist grabbing my camera and trying to capture the activity through the window. It makes for a slightly blurry shot, but you can get the sense of how busy it is.

The goldfinches are now all in breeding plumage as you can see... and a busy bunch they are, grabbing seed, fleeing to the trees and shrubs if there is the tiniest move from inside... and returning with glee to chow down on black oil sunflower seeds.

Something about their cheerful appearance - like little bits of sunlight flitting around - or gold pennies whirling in the sunlight - makes me smile.

Spring is my favourite time of year - have you guessed that?

Even if my feet get cold sitting at the computer, I open the doors to the deck now just to hear the delightful songs and bring the outside in.

Hope you enjoy each day the way I am - even the gray and gloomy ones have birds to fill the air with song... and I saw a bluebird on my deck the other day. Hopefully it will nest nearby and I can watch their activities.

Have a special day!