Saturday’s Solitude #1.

Posted on May 1, 2021 by

74 Comments

Good morning everyone! It’s time for a nice cup of coffee on a beautiful spring Saturday. Happy May as well! Hard to believe that May is here. I must admit that April seemed like a rather long month due to the cold weather that just wanted to hang around long after the snow was gone. Really, it isn’t unusual to have cold weather in April, but normally there is also snow on the ground, at least for the last several years. Normally once the snow is gone things warm up rather quickly. So that made this year a bit unusual. Winters are colder and longer than they used to be.

Male purple finch. I like when they look at me.

We could count on snow being gone by about April 8th and spring migrants, like robins, grackles, juncos, beginning to show up the last week of March or the very beginning of April. Everything seems to be about 3 or 4 weeks later now than it used to be. Plus winter starts earlier too. But now that we have entered May things should start to change more rapidly. The cold weather of April basically stopped the spring migration for a while, so the birds that did arrive stayed longer than normal. That was good for me, gave me more opportunities for pics of these birds, and I was able to get a lot of good pics too. However, now the migration has begun again and birds will be moving through our area much more quickly, since they are a bit late.

Here he is taking off.

So that will make things more challenging to get pics of these later birds. But opportunities will still be there. I finally got some nice pics of a beautiful red male purple finch, as you can see. The one with his wings up was when he was taking off. He’s squatting down and now that his wings are up he jumps as his wings come down, gives him more lift that way. The robins are singing so nicely this morning, and the white-throated sparrows. I’m hoping to get some nicer pics of them this year. Fortunately they stay in our area for the summer. There was a red-winged blackbird here yesterday and I tried, for the 4th year, to get a pic of him, without success.

Jasper eating his breakfast of sunflower seeds.

They breed here as well, but along lakes and rivers where there is a lot of reeds and rushes. So I don’t get to see them much in summer. Blackbirds are not really high on my list of favorite birds, but this one is quite nice with it’s red wing patch. And I like their song, it just is one of those summer songs that is nice. Maybe he’ll be here again today. It is so beautiful this morning, no air movement at all. And so many birds singing and chirping. Skitter, the last of my chipmunks has been gone for 2 days now. I had 5 chipmunks. They are all gone. I think it’s because there are now 4 male squirrels, which is just too much for them to handle. That’s bad for Jasper. I have a new pic of him from yesterday. More and more Freddie is becoming the dominant squirrel. Guess we will see what happens over the summer. Well, looks like it is time to put out more bird seed. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.

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74 Comments on “Saturday’s Solitude #1.”

  7. Lovely pics Steve ! At least you have Jasper around…for now…he needs to be more aggressive ! Had my vaccine shot today…no problems…so far…☕️☕️😺😎🍪🍪

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    • I had a sore arm for a couple days and a slight fever the day after. Thanks so much! Skitter was back today!😀😺☕☕🌞

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  9. The purples are starting to show up here as well. sounds like a nice quiet Saturday. Here’s aquestion for the expert. House Finches, Purple Finches, RedPolls and possibly others look so very similar. What is a quick way to tell the difference??
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    Laugh because… Why not??

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    • We don’t get house finches up here much, I have only seen a few over the years. I had 2 here two winters ago which surprised me. They are the same size as purple finches, females are about the same coloring, male house finches are definitely a more orange/red while purple are very red. That doesn’t necessarily help unless you see them together since colors can vary a bit. But it usually is a good indicator. Redpolls are small, have a small bill and a red spot on the head, very distinctive. Pine siskins have a bit of yellow in wings and tail and generally are very bossy and will chase away any of the others. Also the house finch male usually doesn’t have a fully red head, but brownish on top with a red stripe above it’s eye, really does stand out as a good marker.

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