Good morning and Happy Friday to everyone! It’s a beautiful, sunny morning here today, the sky is a vivid blue, not a cloud anywhere that I can see, just fantastical! The birds are busy again, though they started a bit later than usual this morning. Only one gull showed up today, I think it was Sir Charles. The gulls have probably begun nesting now so I won’t likely see them much for a while. But I’m sure that Sir George and Sir Henry will still stop in for a meal each day and get a treat to bring back to their mates. Harvey, the hairy woodpecker, comes each day to get peanuts to take back to his mate who is on the nest right now, somewhere across the street on the way to the river.

Who knows how far away their nest might be though, they can easily fly a long distance in a short time. There are so many evening grosbeaks out there right now, that even with five spots to eat many of them have to wait their turn up in the trees chirping cheerily and continually trying to come down and find a place at one of the restaurants. When you have good food the customers come even if you don’t have a fancy restaurant. Yesterday my landlord spotted my plastic jug turned feeder and said, “What’s that thing?” She just shook her head when I told her. But the birds love it even though it looks odd and it swings wildly at times, it is still a very busy place.

So far 9 different species of birds have used that odd looking feeder. And if the bear decides to destroy it, there’s no real loss, it didn’t cost anything except about 5 minutes of time. Another one of my favorite little sparrows came back yesterday, the chipping sparrow, which I am showing today. These little birds are so friendly, they will come right up to me, sit on my feet, and even fly up and sit on my arm and hand and they don’t mind if I talk to them, but they don’t seem to like my camera, like a lot of birds. But I got some good pics of this one while he was searching for seeds on the deck. I spread seeds on the deck right now too since there are still so many birds around.

This way the sparrows get to eat while the feeders are full of grosbeaks and purple finches. Sir Henry was just here looking in the window wanting his breakfast, so I took it out to him. Poor Skitter was on one of the feeders picking up sunflower seeds and when Sir Henry went from his post to the feeder that scared Skitter and he ran in circles. Then Sir Henry flew up to the roof to wait for me to put the food out, that scared Skitter again and he ran in circles again. Then I walked by and that was too much, he jumped off his feeder to the deck and ran off. He gets scared easily, reminds me of Jasper. The top featured image is not Jasper, it’s Leap, a new squirrel. Speaking of squirrels…but that will have to wait. I hope you all have a wonderful Friday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.