Good morning to all of you on this very cold Thursday! The temp is sitting down at -33F (-37C) once again, but it is beautifully sunny out there again this morning. That sun is shining in here so nice a bright providing a beautiful, warm glow to the room. It illuminates the wood paneling on the walls and sparkles off the brightly colored insulators as they sit neatly arranged on their own display shelves. Muffin is sleeping in the sun on her quilt atop the insulator shelf unit.

She enjoys it up there in the morning. She lays there looking out the window until she gets sleepy and her head begins to droop. Then she just automatically curls up and she is asleep. Chickadees, nuthatches and about 30 redpolls are at the feeders this morning. Baxter and Betty, my two main blue jays, are here filling up with peanuts. But not one grosbeak has shown up this morning. No pine, nor evening, grosbeaks. It is so quiet out there without the grosbeaks around. I miss all that chatter.

There are 3 nuthatches sitting in a small walnut tree outside my window sunning themselves. All 3 just came down to the feeders, likely going after the suet cakes, which is what they do most of the day. But they also take sunflower seeds or pieces of peanuts as well. I chopped up some peanuts and put them out with the sunflower seeds this morning. The little birds enjoy the peanuts, especially in this cold weather. I cannot see the feeders from where I am sitting. There really is not much action out there right now. I am sure that shrike is the reason my birds have disappeared.

I just counted 8 redpolls, 3 nuthatches and a couple chickadees out at the feeders. What a difference from a couple weeks ago when I had over a hundred grosbeaks, nearly 200 redpolls, more than 50 chickadees and nuthatches. But when a shrike decides to stay around, then the other birds will leave and go somewhere safer. Then the shrike leaves too, trying to find all those birds. Jasper was here quite a bit yesterday and was busy hauling peanuts off and burying them in different places. The blue jays watched and when he left they would come down and dig up his peanuts!

A couple times he spotted them and then try to chase them away, which was kind of pointless since they would just fly into a try and Jasper would be left on the snow chattering at them. At one point he chased the blue jay up into the tree, but the blue jay would just keep moving to a higher branch. So Jasper gave up and decided to eat a couple peanuts. I guess that extra running around gave him an appetite. It is a beautiful morning, even though cold, but that sun is so bright and cheerful, the sky is so clear and blue. Thank you for reading everyone. Have a wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.