Tuesday’s Chatter. #18

Good morning to everyone! It is another cool, cloudy morning here. Yesterday was very cool and cloudy, plus it snowed for about 3 hours in the early morning, snowing quite heavily actually. Fortunately it was just warm enough that it melted as it hit the ground. It seemed rather odd to look out on May 2nd, seeing all this snow still on the ground and watching it snow. The feeders were certainly busy however, just as they are this morning.

That is another odd thing, there are dozens of redpolls out here still, close to 80 of them. They should be gone back north a long time ago. These birds go a long way north, past the tree line and on to open tundra for nesting. If they do not hurry they will have a very short breeding season. I thought it was so strange a few years ago to see just one redpoll still here on the third of May, and this year there are dozens. Only 5 of my chipmunks have returned so far, Pocket, Skamper, Coffee, Skitter and Choco.

There were 9 last fall, I hope the other 4 are okay. Pocket, Skamper, and Coffee will come up on my lap right away to get peanuts. Skitter will take them from my hand but will not come on my lap yet, but he never did last year either. He is a very nervous little chipmunk. Choco will not take peanuts from me yet, but does come closer all the time. Maybe this week with warmer weather arriving I can spend more time out on the deck with the chipmunks and that will help them get used to me.

It is supposed to be sunny today and I can see some blue sky starting to show up. It is just happening a bit slower than the forecast which said the clouds would leave overnight. Hopefully I can start getting some photos of our birds this week while they are still here. It is hard getting pics of them without having snow in the pic too. But this is May, I do not want photos of the birds with snow, just does not fit. After “enjoying” snow for more than 6 months now, I am ready for our snow free season.

There are still not many birds returning from the south yet, but I expect that will change this week. I bring the hanging feeders in at night now because bears are up and I do not want them to find any food. I do leave my funny looking homemade feeder out, but it is out of reach for the bears. I also thought it would be out of reach of the raccoons as well. I was wrong. Raccoons were around last night and managed to get the feeder unhooked and dropped it to the ground where it was then emptied of its seeds. Sigh.

However, it was not broken, so I filled it again and hung it up. I will just have to bring that one inside at night too. I never saw them get at the feeder, somehow I slept through that, I was very tired last night. That raccoon must have been quite acrobatic to get that feeder as it hangs underneath my platform feeder. Oh well, now I know. There are a lot of evening grosbeaks out there today, right now sitting in the trees chirping loudly.

I guess they must have finished the seeds so it is time to go out and feed them again. Another cup of coffee would be good too, anyone else want some coffee? Thank you for joining me today, I truly appreciate each and every one of you who stop by each day. Today I am showing some photos of white-throated sparrows from 2018 from this time of year, but no snow around. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin. (Praying for the people of Ukraine)

©2022 Steve McLeod.