Good morning everyone! It’s a rather chilly, blustery kind of day. There is light snow falling and a strong wind from the northwest which changed our temperature from 40F (4C) yesterday afternoon to -15F (-26C) this morning. Quite a change in less than 24 hours. But it’s that wind that really makes it feel so cold. I should have brought my feeders inside last night. They needed to be filled anyway, though there was still seeds in each of them. But, we had freezing drizzle overnight which covered the feeders with ice and the birds were unable to get the seeds.

It was not easy getting that ice off those feeders so the birds would be able to get the seeds and I didn’t have time to bring them inside to melt the ice. Sigh. I should have brought them in last night. But they are working nicely now and the birds are busy enjoying their breakfast. A male downy woodpecker came and was having his breakfast on the suet when a hairy woodpecker came along. Those two woodpeckers are basically twins except the downy is only half the size of the hairy. So, the hairy woodpecker decides he wants the suet that the downy is on. The downy looks and decides it is better to leave it for the hairy.

So he comes down onto the railing and jumps his way over to the second suet feeder, but a red-breasted nuthatch is on that one. He is much bigger than the nuthatch, but he decides to leave it and go to the third suet feeder. No birds on that one so he jumps onto it and enjoys his breakfast at last. Good thing to have so many choices. But even with 3 suet feeders it is often not enough with all the birds around. Maybe I will hang up another one. I need to make some more suet cakes too, they do not last very long these days. A lot of the birds eat them, including 6 woodpeckers, plus the nuthatches and chickadees, and the Canada jay when he shows up, but he is not coming around very much this winter.

Well, I officially have a new landlord now and I signed a new rental agreement with him, which means I get to stay here, for another year at least. So that is finally settled which is nice. Jasper has shown up, and naturally so has Garnet. Garnet always comes right after Jasper shows up. I think he deliberately waits for Jasper just so they can have a “discussion”. And they certainly are doing that right now, but Jasper has him on the run at the moment. Right when he was enjoying his first peanut too. Poor Jasper. Time for another coffee I think, how about you? Thank you for reading today, have a wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin. (top featured image is a downy woodpecker.)

©2021 Steve McLeod.