Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Merry Christmas Everyone!😀😺🎄
Good morning everyone! It is a beautiful, chilly morning here at Steve’s Country! The temp is -8F (-22C), the birds are busy at the feeders as usual. Jasper is hauling away peanuts and no one is challenging his territory this morning. Now that is unusual. The birds are feeding nicely together as well. Usually the evening and pine grosbeaks do not get along, but there has been little “arguing” among them this morning. It is a little cooler than it has been so the birds are more interested in eating, rather than “arguing”.
There were seeds left over from yesterday so I was not so concerned about getting out there too early to feed them. But when I looked I discovered they could not pull the seeds off the feeders, the seeds were frozen to the feeder. I should have realized that, it did get up to 32F (0C) yesterday, then freezing as it did was not good. So I went out and gave them fresh seeds. I will scrape the other seeds free a little later. There is not much wind out there which is nice, so hopefully I can spend some time outside trying to attract the pine grosbeaks to my hand again.
I had 2 of them land on me yesterday, one female was just on and off again, but then a male came and actually stayed there for a bit. Right now I am just trying to get them used to me, then I can try for a picture. At the beginning birds are always afraid of the camera, so I don’t try for pictures right away, it will just scare the grosbeaks away and make it harder for them to come back again. I hope you all have a most wonderful Christmas today!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Fantastical Friday! #34
Good morning everyone! It is the day before Christmas and it is snowing again and it covered up the seeds again and so I had to go out and clean off the snow again. It was a nice kind of snow however, bigger flakes, a wet type snow and I see it just stopped. I was going to go out and make a snowman. There is a lot of snow, but it needs to be wet snow so it sticks together. But it is close to the melting point, or freezing point, depending on how you want to look at it. Anyway, it is 30F (-1C). Amazing, both Jasper and Garnet arrived at the same time again.
I think they must watch each other so that when one comes to the deck, then the other one does the same. Then they can fight. I am sure they must enjoy that part. Right now it is Jasper chasing Garnet off the property. Jasper stopped at the fence and Garnet climbed a nearby tree and chattered at Jasper. Jasper returned the chatter and came back. Now he is running off with a peanut. The birds are all busy this morning and it has started snowing again I see.
I’m back. Needed to go clean off the feeders and put out more seeds and peanuts. Yesterday, since it was so mild with a temp of 15F (-9C), I decided to stand outside with seeds on my hand. I was able to stay there for half an hour with bare hands trying to attract birds. I did get the chickadees coming to my hand readily and a couple of pine grosbeaks actually tried a twice to land, but backed off at the last minute. Two others tried to land on my head, others were landing on the railing right beside me, paying no attention at all to me standing there.
That is perfect. Since it was my first time I consider it a success even if the grosbeaks did not land on my hand. Perhaps today they will do it. It is even milder today so I will be trying it again shortly. Two Canada jays were here and I gave them some food and off they went. I hope you all have a most wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 