Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee Time #106. Thursday’s Thoughts.
Good morning everyone! It’s a beautiful spring morning here today! And the coffee is ready to share with everyone. It’s 32F (0C) this morning with the sun shining beautifully and the temp is supposed to rise all the way to 63F (17C) this afternoon. What a change in the weather, a beautiful change, so I will be out enjoying it today, especially since tomorrow we drop back down to a high of only 39F (4C) with flurries in the forecast again. This up and down temperature I will admit can be hard on a person’s body. At least for me anyway, perhaps others don’t feel it the way I do. The air was very still this morning when I went out to feed the birds, not even the slightest breeze.
The birds were already out there waiting for me at 5:30, soon they will be waiting at 5. Actually I’m sure that some were likely out at 5 this morning, it gets light early now, and will keep getting earlier as the weeks go by. However, that doesn’t mean I will be going out earlier with their breakfast. I figure that 5:30 is early enough for now. I already noticed a big difference in the number of birds around this morning, I would say only half are here now, the rest are already spreading out and moving on northward. More will leave today with that south wind when it begins to blow later.
So I was out quite a bit yesterday taking pics by the hundreds. And I got some really nice pics too. Including a tree sparrow. This is the fourth spring trying to get a pic of that one and I finally did it. I actually got quite a few very nice pics of that one, and there was only the one bird, and I’m sure he will be gone today. I won’t be showing that pic this morning though, I will save that one for my Bird Of The Day post later today. Jasper had a busy day yesterday, mostly with Chase who was determined to have his time at the feeder. And Jasper was just as determined to keep him away.
Meanwhile Freddie was stuffing himself on the squirrel food and watching all the action. I gave the squirrels their own feeder up close to the window and they really like it. The idea was to keep them as far from the bird feeders as possible so they don’t scare the birds away. So far it’s working out very nicely. There are lots of evening grosbeaks here this morning too, I would say at least 30 of them, mostly males, so the feeders are very bright and colorful today. Hopefully I can make it down to the river this afternoon and see if there is any activity down there. I hope that more ducks have arrived. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve’s Bird Of The Day #59.
Hi everyone and welcome back to part 2 of our look at the “ruby-throated hummingbird”. Yesterday we saw the male and today in the above pic is the female. She does not have the ruby colored throat but instead it’s a grayish white like her chest and stomach area. She arrives a little later than the male and when she arrives he puts on a very elaborate dance in the air courtship display and if she accepts him, they mate and he leaves. She then selects a nesting site and constructs a tiny nest on top of a sturdy branch and makes it look like just a bump on the branch. She uses spider web and plant down to construct the nest and secures it to the branch with sticky spider silk. Then she attaches lichen to the outside of the nest to camouflage it. She uses her body to smoothly shape the interior of the nest and lays 1 to 3 eggs. She leaves the nest only for brief periods to feed. Hummingbirds eat the nectar from flowers and they prefer flowers that are red or orange, then pink or yellow and generally prefer tubular flowers for feeding. They are easily attracted to feeders like the one shown in my pics. They also eat a large number of small insects including mosquitoes and spiders as well. An important early season food source for them is the sap from trees provided by the sapsuckers. They will often follow a sapsucker around to find all the feeding spots. We are at the northernmost range for the ruby-throated hummingbird in this area.
I hope you have enjoyed our little look at this fascinating tiny bird. Have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 