Birds at the Feeder

These are beautiful winter days. The snow falls in big flakes, swirling around, making me feel like I'm living in a snow globe. Occasionally, the sun peeks out and the snow glistens.  It really is the iconic, romantic setting, as I sit here on the sofa, the lower half of my body wrapped in a super-soft blanket, and Baby curled up sleeping next to me. (Baby is one of our cats.)

Every day isn't like this, of course, and I would be happy to trade it for a day that's much warmer - the kind where I spend hours getting dirty and sweaty in the garden. But for now, because it is winter after all, this is good.

There's a party goin' on right here...

I have a bird's eye view, literally, of the platform feeder just outside our family room window. Today, as in other days, I've seen various sparrows, finches, a starling, blue jays, cardinals and a mourning dove.

Mama cardinal looks at the mourning dove and wonders, "What are you doing here?"

"That's better. All to myself. And don't you get any ideas either!"

The juncos and chickadees are conspicuously absent, as are the nuthatches. I know the nuthatches are out there, because I often hear them chattering. I hear the woodpeckers, too, and saw a northern flicker on a nearby tree last week.

In the bird world, clearly size does matter. I've never seen a blue jay allow anything
other than another blue jay share the feeder, and sometimes not even one of those.

"Peanuts. Nom, nom, nom!"

We like to feed the birds, as many of you probably do, too. Keep in mind that once birds have found your feeder, they come to count on it as one of their major food sources, so be sure to keep it full.

We aren't the only ones that like to watch the birds. Baby finds them to be pretty interesting, too.

"Where did they go?"