Good morning to everyone and Happy Sunday! Help yourself to some coffee, or tea if you prefer, sit back and relax with us for a little while. We had more ice fog last night, so the trees are once again beautifully frosted this morning. Actually, everything is frosted, including the bird feeders and the deck railing which I hold onto so I don’t flip over it while standing on the box to put food on the feeder. Plus I had to refill a couple of the hanging feeders this morning as well and they were also frosted. So my hands got a bit chilled. Good thing it wasn’t a cold morning at least.

Speaking of temperature, it was 18F (-8C) this morning, and we might get to see the sun a bit today. That would be nice. Hmm, it looks like Jasper has lost in the fight for his territory. The “other” squirrel was here eating sunflower seeds yesterday and Jasper came along. The “other” squirrel chattered a warning and Jasper stayed on the other side of the fence. Too bad the chipmunks are not around in the winter. I’m sure they would help Jasper chase this new squirrel away from here.

I should probably name this “other” squirrel since it looks like he will be staying around here for awhile. There is also a third squirrel that has started to come around, he is from across the street. So he likely won’t be around very long. He has managed to stay away from fighting with either of the other two. But he’s not very friendly, at least not yet. The “other” squirrel isn’t friendly either. Sigh. All three of them are amazingly similar in color, but Jasper is a little darker than the others, hard to tell from a distance though. So far only the chickadees, nuthatches, redpolls and blue jays have been here this morning. The grosbeaks are once again missing, but hopefully they will show up today. The blue jays just chased the shrike away, and they went a long distance away too. But they are now returning. There are 6 of them today, an increase of one. Perhaps that lone blue jay has found himself a mate now. Well, time to go once again, I do hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.