Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Daily Pics #301.
Good morning and Happy Sunday to you all! It’s an amazingly beautiful morning here with a temp of 11C (52F) already. It is mainly cloudy and we should get a few showers later today and then the temp starts it’s steady drop through tonight and tomorrow. But it is winter, even though it doesn’t feel like it at the moment. But we get these odd years now and then. There is a snowstorm hitting out west bringing with it 30 to 50 cm of snow but it will be missing us and heading north of us instead. That’s fine. I could never deal with that much snow all at one time. Steve would be missing from Steve’s Country if that happened. Oh well. The blue jays and evening grosbeaks are busy at the feeders this morning. It’s so nice to have the evening grosbeaks around, they are such a beautiful and cheerful bird to have at the feeder. I sure hope they decide to stay all winter now. The feeder is full of them at the moment and the food supply must be getting low, I notice a few “discussions” are developing.
There are a lot of males here this morning, more than normal, like a bunch of yellow lights all over the feeder. The chickadees are at the hanging feeder just below them. But they don’t stay at the feeder and eat, they just grab a seed and fly back to a branch on the tree to peck it open and eat the contents. They seem to put so much work into eating those sunflower seeds, but they don’t seem to mind. Guess they know that seed is just so tasty and nutritious that it’s worth the work involved to get at it. Hmm, the grosbeaks just flew away. The blue jays came back, that’s why. Baxter, my main blue jay doesn’t mind having the grosbeaks on the feeder with him, the other blue jays have different ideas, they want it all. But in the end everybody gets some. Jasper hasn’t shown up yet, sleeping late this morning it seems. Theodore was on the ground finding seeds. I think he prefers that to standing on that little bird feeder. Little for him anyway.
Well, this morning we have some nice bright flowers to share once again. The featured image is a nice bright rose. Then we have a Shirley poppy in a nice lavender color and lastly we have a bright and bold sunflower. I hope you all have a great Sunday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Daily Pics #300.
Good morning! I hope you are all having a good start to your weekend. It is a cool, cloudy morning here but it’s supposed to warm up overnight and be another nice day tomorrow before finally cooling off for the remainder of winter. The snow is gone now except for some patches in shady areas, but it will be back soon enough. There is a big snowstorm out west hitting places with a foot (30cm) of snow this weekend. But it’s missing us except for some flurries so that’s okay. However, since we are returning to cold, we do need snow on the ground. Actually, the ground is still frozen hard right now so that frost is still going down. There’s still a few juncos around, I’m quite surprised they haven’t gone yet. Hopefully they leave this weekend while the weather is still good. The blue jays and evening grosbeaks are busy at the feeders this morning and so are the chickadees. I managed to finally get all my work done out there yesterday so now the birds are set for the winter.
I also have more space to hang the winter suet feeders plus one more chickadee/nuthatch feeder. This last one I haven’t made yet, but will be this coming week. It is something that only chickadees, and birds their size, will be able to use. It can be hard for the little birds to compete for food otherwise. And lately I have been trying to recycle a bit. Now, recycling is something I do all the time, but this is different. I mean taking something and reusing it for something else. Sometimes my ideas work and sometimes they don’t. I will be showing a couple of ideas in my DIY posts. This feeder may not look like much when it’s done, but if it works that’s the main thing and the little chickadees and friends will be happy. Jasper came by while I was working outside yesterday looking for peanuts. I was ready for him with some nice big peanuts. He took most of them back home but after 8 trips he stopped for a snack of 3 peanuts. I have seen him eat 4 and a half peanuts in one sitting. That’s a lot when considering the size of that little squirrel. He must be all stomach.
For more of my favorite summer pictures today I chose 2 pics of a merganser family. The top featured image is mother merganser and her family of 15 little ducklings. Actually, they’re not really that little. The second pic is the babies by themselves, the mother was just out of the picture but watching over them closely. The one baby is yawning, can you find him? I hope you have a nice relaxing Saturday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2020 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 