Tuesday’s Tidbits. #7

A very good morning to each of you on this lovely Tuesday! Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone as well! It is morning here, and quite a nice morning too. The temperature is a nice 34F (1C), which is a great way to begin a day in the middle of winter. And it is much better than what it will be like tomorrow morning. But I do not want to think about that change right now. That temperature will drop way too much tonight. Which means tomorrow morning will be back to that face numbing cold.

But I do not want to think about that right now. It is nice this morning. The birds are busy, though not a lot of them. Those poor little nuthatches will not enjoy the return of cold weather either. They suffer so much in the cold. It will be getting cold again tonight. That face numbing type of cold. But I do not want to think about that right now.

Female Common Redpoll sitting on my hand.

Back to birds. One sad thing about my blue jays. I have 2 favorite blue jays, Baxter and Betty. They have been together for the past 6 years. But now, for the first time, Baxter has been coming by himself for the past 4 days. Baxter and Betty are always together. Sigh. Poor Baxter. Another pair of blue jays were courting today. The female was on a branch, sitting, looking around. Then a male landed on the same branch and walked over to her and offered her a peanut, which she happily accepted, fluttering her wings as he put it in her mouth.

I always like watching that. Every year I try to get a picture, but by the time I get outside with my camera, it is all over. Sigh. But it is nice to see anyway. They were smart doing that before that cold weather returns, which will happen tonight. With a cold north wind hitting us, bringing back that face numbing cold once more. But I do not want to think about that right now.

Male Common Redpoll sitting on my hand last winter.

Back to the birds. I am still trying to get a picture of that female Downy woodpecker. She was here this morning and on the perfect side of the suet to get a nice picture. I did not need to worry about putting on boots and jacket this morning, just grab my camera and go out there quickly. I did too and…she was gone. Sigh.

I am back again. This post will be a bit later than I anticipated. There were quite a few different species of birds out there so, since it was a nice morning, I went and tried to get some pictures. I was gone for 45 minutes. It was nice, birds all around. There was 2 Hairy woodpeckers, 1 Downy woodpecker, 4 blue jays, several chickadees and nuthatches, plus common redpolls, a couple of Pine grosbeaks and 3 purple finches, a male and 2 females.

Another female Common Redpoll on the feeder, with a male and female Pine Grosbeak behind her.

One female came close to landing on my hand, but all I had was peanut pieces and they prefer sunflower seeds. I did get at least 4 different chickadees to land on my hand, plus one nuthatch. I took pics, but I do not think they turned out. Those little birds move so fast it can be quite difficult to get a good picture of them sometimes.

But at least I could be out there all that time with bare hands and not get cold. That part was certainly nice. I almost thought the one male Hairy woodpecker was going to come onto my hand. He was sitting on the deck railing right beside me and was looking intently at those peanut pieces, something they love. But he finally decided on going for a whole peanut that I had put out for the blue jays. Sigh.

That would have been so fantastic! I might try again after lunch, which I am eating right now, a little early. But I was hungry, so why wait? Well, thank you so much for joining Muffin and I for coffee this morning. I hope you all have a most wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.