Good morning everyone! The coffee is ready, and Muffin is staring at the door waiting for all of you to stop in and say ‘hi’. It’s not so cold this morning either! It’s -18F (-28C) this morning so that terrible cold is past and it’s supposed to keep getting warmer throughout the week. Nice to finally start getting that break after 2 weeks of that bitter cold. And the days are getting longer now, very noticeably longer. It gets daylight before 7am now and stays with us until 6pm. Spring is coming!

However, that is still likely 2 months away, unless we get a very early spring, and Muffin assures me it will be early this year. Of course, she said that last year too, and we had a late spring instead. The first bird here this morning was a hairy woodpecker, followed by a downy woodpecker. And that was 40 minutes after there was good daylight. That’s very odd. Baxter and Betty arrived at about an hour after daylight. They are my only 2 remaining blue jays. The shrike showed up next. Poor Baxter. He was alone to chase that shrike today, but he did it! There are still no chickadees or nuthatches around. Chickadee numbers have dropped to just 4 birds, only one nuthatch.

I hope it’s not because the shrike is getting them. We’ll see this week as the temp warms up a bit, if the birds begin to return again or not. I’m hoping it’s just the cold weather that has been keeping them away. Even Jasper and his mate Sylvie haven’t been coming around lately. Those are the two squirrels, for my new readers who may not know. It will be nice when my chipmunks come back. It’s good to have some nice summer pics this time of year, so I have picked out some nice, bright flowers to share for today. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.