Chow time

At one point in the middle of the blizzard last winter, I kept hearing a tapping noise at the window. It was a black, white and gray chickadee looking in at me, disoriented and hungry because of the sub-freezing temperatures and two feet of snow on the ground. I threw some breadcrumbs out onto the snow, but since I didn't have birdfeeders installed I couldn't do much else. As the winter progressed, I kept remembering that little bird.

Now I've got a flat birdfeeder hanging from a branch of the apple tree nearest the house (prime viewing location for both me and the cats), a small hopper feeder affixed to a cornerpost of the front deck, and a platform feeder on the ground. I provide food of various kinds; black-oil sunflower seeds, millet, nuts, cracked corn and dried berries. It didn't take long for word to get around about the avian smorgasbord in my front yard. I bought a bird book (Stan Tekiela's Birds of Washington Field Guide) and have been learning to identify the various species by sight and sound.

Since the bird species that inhabit the areas west of the Rocky Mountain are much different from those east of the Rockies, I'm meeting someone new (bird-wise) every day. Yesterday I came home to see a bluish-gray bird sitting in the hanging feeder, so big that it almost filled the 14 inch-long feeder. Its body shape was vaguely familiar to me; it had a large flank, a small head and slender neck, but with distinctive markings I hadn't seen before: a narrow white band across the back of its neck, and black wings. Checking the bird book, I discovered this to be a band-tailed pigeon, a bird that doesn't stay in one place for the season but roams according to where it finds food at the moment.

Unlike the roaming band-tailed pigeon, I have many repeat customers who seem to have taken up residence nearby. Here's the undisputed king of the yard ...a large redwing blackbird who sits in the top of the apple tree, calling the other birds after I've re-filled the feeders.

And who's this?

Yep, that's one very well-fed squirrel.

Comments

[Cindy L]

Your well-fed squirrel makes me smile. We've got lots of squirrels in our Midwest garden, and they are BOLD! My husband keeps bird food inside the door of our garden room, which leads out to the patio. One of the squirrels figured this out, and she/he walks into the house when the door is open, and jumps right into the bucket of bird food for lunch!

[Kitty]

I know there are folks who get riled up at the squirrels, but I figure they're a part of nature, too (the squirrels, that is), and I enjoy their antics.