Wandering Through Wednesday. #16

Good morning to all of you on this milder Wednesday! Yes indeed, the temperature is up a bit at 30F (-1C). This is one of our milder mornings so far and it felt nice going out to feed the birds. It is a bit windy though which makes it feel a bit cooler, but it still is not bad. The birds are busy this morning, still quite a few redpolls, though counting them has not been easy since they have been flying back and forth so much this morning.

It only takes one bird to scare the whole flock and it happens a lot. But there is around 40 of them. There are over 100 juncos. All the others are about the same in numbers. Still just one grackle out there, normally there should be flocks of them back now. A red-winged blackbird showed up this morning too, which is not unusual for this time of year. But what is unusual is having all this snow on the ground when the blackbirds show up.

I have never seen so much snow on the ground when the red-winged blackbirds come back, and there should be a lot of them back this time of the year. There should be a lot of other birds too, but they are nowhere to be seen yet. There will be a big rush of birds when they finally do start returning, and those that just move through the area will not stay around long this year. That makes it harder to get pictures of birds that I am trying to add to my collection.

I am going to miss some ducks this year too since I am unable to get down to the river right now. Still way too much snow and ice for safe walking. By the looks of things it will be May before I can walk to the river again. I was outside for a while yesterday trying to get some pictures, which I will show today. Anyway, there were some female purple finches around and I got some nice photos of them, but none of the males were in sight.

Finally I had to come inside, took my boots and jacket off, put my camera down and looked out the window. There were 4 bright red, male purple finches out there. Four of them. So I decide to go back out and get ready. I look out the window to make sure they are still there and… not a bird in sight anywhere. Then I saw the hawk flying away over the trees next door. Sigh.

Take jacket and boots off, put camera away and look out the window. Still nothing out there, they never came back again. But they are here this morning. However it is cloudy, they look much brighter in the sunshine. Oh well. No more sun in the forecast until next week. Hopefully they will stay around. It is fun watching the birds each morning. Time for another coffee, there is lots for everyone. Have a most wonderful Wednesday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.