Winter Visitors

A few years ago, the Consort gave me a bird feeder for Christmas. I really enjoy birdwatching out my kitchen window in the wintertime. Sure, there are fewer birds around, but you really get to know them, the foliage doesn’t hide them, and they have a decent chance of escaping the cat (Who doesn’t seem to realize that his big black furriness is visible when the herbs under the bird feeder are wintering over [Plus, whenever I let him out, I shout out “Fly away birds! Here comes the cat!” – I bet our Somalian neighbors think I’m very strange (But not as strange as the neighbor’s brother thinks the Consort is. Earlier this spring the Consort was shouting at some chattering squirrels on the roof. The squirrels stopped to look at him, and so he asked them, “Oh, alright, what’re your names?” [I kid you not]. Just then, the Consort noticed that our neighbor’s brother was standing by his car, right on the other side of the fence. They greeted each other, and then the brother drove off. . .).].).

The majority of our visitors are sparrows, followed closely by a number of black-capped chickadees.

We’ve got a cardinal couple that have been coming to our feeder since we put it up. He’ll usually eat first, but then she’ll take a turn, nudging off many of the smaller birds in the process.

I just recently noted the return of our white-breasted nuthatch (OK, the link is to a red-breasted one, but just use your imagination!) and our downy woodpecker. There’s never more than one, so in my mind that means it is the same ones returning each year (how long do these guys live, anyway?).

But today! Today, my friends, I saw our backyard’s first red-headed woodpecker. How cool is that? I wish my digital camera did fancy zooming, because I sure would like to take pictures of all my visitors, but then I’d have to wash my kitchen window more often, and that would just not happen. Oh well, they’re still there for us every day, in real life.