Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee At Steve’s Country #64. Feeling Like Spring.
Good morning and Happy Friday to all of you! The coffee is ready and waiting, just help yourself and relax with us for awhile. It’s really quite beautiful these days, this morning it’s 25F (-4C) once again, a nice mild temp to begin the day. And it’s sunny with the birds sounding very much spring like with their songs and calls to each other. All of our area crows arrived back from the south yesterday so they have been calling back and forth to each other. Not too many people like crows, but they are usually the first sign of spring and our first returning birds each year. For that reason it’s nice to hear them back again. But I realize they can become a pest after awhile, though I have only had that problem once and that was last year. Our regular crow didn’t return last year so that left this an empty territory which was used by a number of non breeding crows, 17 to be exact, and they did become a pest scaring away other birds and taking all the food.
Usually the next to return are the eagles, even though many stay here all winter, most head south and they always return in March. After that the gulls return and when that happens we know that the worst of winter is past. Though it can still get cold and snowy after the gulls come back, it doesn’t last. However, this warm weather isn’t supposed to last either, only until Tuesday, then it gets cold again for awhile. But that’s kind of normal for us too. Sigh. I went for a walk to the river yesterday, it was just so beautiful down there. But getting there was treacherous in places. The hills were solid ice. With all the trees the sun can’t get in there to melt that snow. It was melting that one day with the strong wind blowing through the trees, but then it froze again, and it has stayed frozen in those areas.
I had to go off the path to walk and that wasn’t easy walking either. While I was sitting on the bench by the river a young woman came along with her small dog, he came to me right away for some attention. I meet this woman quite frequently on the path so she sat down to talk for awhile. She also mentioned how bad the path was right now and she went off the path in a couple places as well to walk by the ice. We enjoyed the view and talked for about 15 minutes before she continued walking. She went along a section of the path I wouldn’t want to attempt just yet. I had looked at it earlier and decided it was too risky. I hope you have a very enjoyable day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve’s Bird Of The Day #26.
Hi everyone and welcome back to our bird series! Today we have a bird not seen very often, the Boreal chickadee. A cousin of our black-capped chickadee but this one hides itself more in the deep Boreal forest right across the Boreal region of Canada, a few northern areas of northern states and into Alaska. These chickadees are brown instead of black and gray like the others and basically they say “chick-dee” in kind of a hoarse voice rather than saying their whole name like the others. These pics are from years ago before I really got into photography and are not very good quality, but I have not seen one in the last 3 years though there is some good habitat for them down towards the river. They are a beautiful chickadee and will come to feeders if you live in a wooded area with lots of spruce trees. It took me quite awhile to convince the more expert birders that I even had them coming to feeders so I just had to get pics to prove it, plus I even had them come to my hand for food. They ate fat and suet, but never ate sunflower seeds or other seeds like the black-capped chickadees. They also loved bread crumbs, but it had to be white bread, they wouldn’t eat any other kind.
I do hope you have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 