Good morning to everyone on this beautiful Wednesday! It is 46F (8C) this morning which is very nice for November 2nd. And, it is supposed to reach a high of 65F (18C) today! That is amazing for this time of the year. But that is only for today. So I will be outside enjoying it as much as I can. My new feeder pole, with feeder, is now in place and ready to be used. The birds were landing on it right away, looking for seeds.

I am waiting just a bit longer before I use that one, just to make sure the bears are not around. I think they went into hibernation during that last cold blast we had. The sun is shining now. It has been cloudy since I got up this morning. Jasper is back defending his territory, or perhaps fighting over a female. I thought his adversary was Copper this year, but it is someone else. It does not look like Chase either, but it could be him.

They started on Saturday, and they are still at it. They spend most of the day chasing each other, chattering and the odd time actually connecting in a real fight. One time they fell out of the tree onto the ground, but they continued fighting like nothing happened. It was only about a 20 foot drop, but that is still quite a long fall for those little critters. It seems to be an even fight, sometimes Jasper is chasing, sometimes Chase is chasing. Or whoever the other squirrel is anyway.

Guess I will call him Chase until I find out differently. But neither one comes over to get peanuts. I think the dog running loose keeps them away. The raccoons have been busy lately, but the last 2 nights they have not shown up. Which is fine. That shrike still comes around. The blue jays chased it away at least once that I saw. But when the shrike came, my white-breasted nuthatches disappeared. The red-breasted nuthatches still come, at least 5 of them.

There are at least 20 chickadees now, but there could be more, they are a bit hard to count since they spread out a lot more than other birds. And they do not come to the feeder as a flock. So, it is necessary to be outside to get a good count of them, and it is still not that easy. I timed the chickadees and nuthatches coming to the feeder. They land, grab and seed and fly away in one second.

During that one second, I have to line them up, focus and click. I miss a lot. Nuthatches are the hardest. Fortunately, there are times when they will sit longer. All those juncos that came in the other day are gone again. I did not see any yesterday, but there was one out here this morning. I even saw a song sparrow on Sunday afternoon.

They normally leave around the end of September. This one stayed behind for some reason. The purple finches were not here yesterday, so perhaps they have gone too. But maybe I just missed them somehow. Hmm, the sun has disappeared again, nothing but clouds out there. Thank you for stopping by today, it is always nice to see you. Have a wonderful Wednesday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.