Hi Dad -
Glad you are enjoying an early spring. It took a temperature dive the last couple weeks, but it is slowly warming up. In the meantime, spring hope remains around the birdfeeder. And with spring migration starting, it's only going to get more interesting! At first this winter, there were hearty little over-wintering black-capped chickadees foraging. These guys cannot stop moving - twitching, swiveling their bodies, upside-down, constantly looking, pecking, hustling for food. Then came the tiny pine siskins, striped from head to tail, they go right to the business of pecking, head down most of the time, they are one of my favorites if for anything, for their dogged humble foraging. Then came their cohorts - the american goldfinches - same size, almost same in appearance until you look closer and notice the golden/green on their head and breast, otherwise their white wing striping gives them distinction. Unless observing the two side by side, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. But the finches tend to raise their crown feathers a little when feeding. Cheeky.
A big, pigeon-sized bird we only witnessed a couple of times briefly at the beginning of the winter returned with fanfare. Clark's Nutcracker, a member of the grackle or jay/crow family, is something to behold. Unlike most of our other visitors, it is rather large, almost 12" from head to stubby tail. It is a dusty pastel grey over much of its body, black wings, and underwing feathers that flash white as it flies away, just like the magpie (their much bigger brothers). It's their punky behavior I can't help but watch when they show up. They're comical, smart as ravens, cheeky as scrub jays. After a couple weeks of feeding them suet blocks, too many started showing up and we had mated pairs battling each other. Sometime, over the course of a couple weeks, the first two that arrived were joined by six or seven pairs that overwhelmed the feeder, and one became injured either by Bleu who may have ambushed it on the porch while feeding or through battling the newcomers. Daily, I looked for him with the concern of a mother. The hurt nutcracker would come to eat, trying to balance, using its good leg and dropped wing. I would try my best through the window to shoo away the others while he ate. He started to only come in the early mornings to avoid the competition, then "fly off", really just gliding down to the ground then using his legs to hop from branch to branch up to the top of the closest pine then glide down to the next, repeating the process of climbing up to what one might suppose was its nest, to rest for the day. We still have many stopping by, not the cacophony of before - we've run out of suet. So it's quieted down and I've been studying each that returns hoping that one of them is the injured bird, but healed. He had a puffy humble demeanor reminding me of Peepers when he was roosting or sick. One of them kind of resembles it, but is fine. I hope it's him. Anyway, these big birds are so entertaining and beautiful in such a plain, grayscale way. Next to our summer hummingbirds, they by far are my favorite. Which is hard to say since the winter bird diversity begs description!
We also have these other remarkable birds at our feeder: red and green pine grosbeaks (at times 16 along our railing), red parrot-like crossbills (if you've ever seen these outside of a bird guide, you're lucky) their bills really do cross at the tip so that they can pry pine cones apart like using pliers - by inserting their beak between a pine cone gap and then opening their jaw to release the seeds which they then crack open with their strong jaws. We've also attracted small nuthatches, two species, one which we can only describe as "the fish". It's so weird looking with a beak that juts out of its forehead and bears markings like that of a mackerel. The other has a more birdlike arrangement of parts with a rufous belly. While "the fish" is skittish and spends no more than a mere few seconds at the feeder, the other has put up with me being out there replenishing the buffet, staying near, but just out of reach. The chickadees are practically tame.
Lastly, I can't leave out the variety of woodpeckers: hairy woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, and beautiful red-mustachioed northern flickers. Phenomenal and resourceful. They are the bankers of the community, caching seeds in every nook and crannie available the local aspen and pine trees. I think even the squirrels and nutcrackers benefit from their stashes.
We learned a hard lesson, though. That is, as fat and dumb as she appears, Bleudog is swift enough to catch an adult bird. Between the suspicion of what might've happened to that nutcracker and what I found her chewing on one morning (a grosbeak), we've had to take measures to protect the birds. She is now tethered out of reach of the feeding area when out on the porch. Most of the time she is in on her pad, anyway.
Do come when it's warmer. It will be nicer and much more easy to get up
the drive without 4WD. And gas is so expensive, so you'll probably want
to take your car. Just beware that I may not be as free as I am now.
I'm waiting to hear back on a few employment possibilities. Such is
life, eh?
See you soon!
Love,
Your Daughter
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