The Birds

 In mid April, my right hip came to a "grinding" halt.  So a lot of routine stuff stopped here.  Part of that was bird support.  The regular sunflower seed feeder went unfilled (and was badly tilted due to soft soil.  The finch thistle seed feeder went unfilled.  I didn't put out hummingbird feeders.

A few days ago, I straightened up the regular feeder and refilled it.  I put fresh thistle out for the goldfinches.  Still didn't get out the hummingbird feeders (but that is top of my list for tomorrow).

Cardinals and other smallish birds arrived for the black oil sunflower seeds yesterday.  Yay!  😀  And I saw a yellow bird fly past my deck door today.  I dashed to a window and saw 3 male goldfinches at the thistle feeders.  😍

I didn't get a picture today, but here are 2 from the past...

It will look like that soon again.

And I heard baby birds chirping for food in the trees and chasing their parents around!  

Now to make hummer-food and get those feeders out!

The Wildlife Is Vanishing

Yes, true worldwide, but I'm thinking of the local ones.  And specifically my yard.  

I keep a mostly organic yard (OK, I spray individual poison ivy plants).  But I do things to help the birds and bees and other stuff thrive.  Half my backyard is left semi-wild.  Lots of small trees for bird-nesting.  I have black oil sunflower seed in one feeder for most songbirds, 2 thistle seed feeders for the purple and gold finches, and 2 nectar feeders for the hummingbirds.

I have 5'x3'pond for frogs.  With plants and debris at the bottom to support aquatic insects.  I have butterfly bushes, pollinator plants, and plants that insect larvae can develop on.  

I used to see some possums and raccoons at night.  I used to hear thousands of Spring Peeper frogs in the swamp across the street in the Spring.

But that has been changing.  I noticed a few years ago that the Swamp was quiet; no Spring Peepers calling in the thousands.  I used to see deer in my front yard and the neighbors in snow prints and visually.  I used to see snow prints of other various critters.

When I moved here 37 years ago, there were no cardinals, finches, etc.  But when I set up feeders, I got up to 6 pairs of cardinals, a bunch of purple finches, a dozen goldfinches, and various smaller birds (titmice, wrens, woodpeckers, etc).  Sometimes, the sunflower seed feeder was mobbed by starlings (I did tend to chase them away as they would just empty the feeder in a few hours, leaving nothing for the other birds and the stuff is somewhat expensive).   I haven't seen it mobbed in a few years.

I think we are in trouble.  If my generally organic semi-wild yard can't support cardinals, finches, and other small birds with good food, something is going very wrong.  If there are no frogs in the pond, something is very wrong.  If the deer (those damned landscape-eaters) are becoming more rarely seen,  something is very wrong.  

My hummingbirds haven't come back this year.  I haven't seen a single butterfly.  I haven't seen a possum on the deck at night.  I haven't seen many bees (Honey or Bumble) and it has been warm enough for a month.  I haven't seen any hornets (not that I love them).  But still, that is not a good sign.

Something is going bad, and I think we are causing all this.  As Pogo said "We have met the enemy and it is us".  

 

50 Days Of Annoyance

This is an update, but not the usual one.  There are effects of injuries that aren't strictly sore muscles and healing ribs...

I've spent more time in bed these past 50 days than the previous 2 months.  Usually, about 10-13 hours per night.  While I may be healing and can get around better now, my body still reminds me that I'm not going on long walks for a while yet, and I may never golf or bowl again.  Not that I've done either for several years, but it is probably not an option anymore.  

I have to be careful lifting heavy pans.  I can feel it when I lift a full mug of tea above my shoulder (I have a M/W on a raised shelf and may change that).   Lifting Marley feels like lifting an anvil (he's 18 lbs now).   I still have to be careful on stairs.  

The right clavicle will never be the same.  The orthopedic surgeon was being optimistic when she said that unless I was a pro athlete I didn't need surgery as "I could do about anything else normally".  So, this is a bit awkward and I don't WANT to sound sexist or questioning her judgement (though I am), but I don't think she understands how much stress men (and some women) put on their bodies in some hobbies.

BEFORE I fell, I did a lot of things that pulled on most muscles and left me sore a few days.  Partly (for me) it is living alone and HAVING to do everything myself.  Partly, it is WANTING to (otherwise, why do it?).  I can hire people to do hard work, but I don't want to.  

Unless the shoulder improves dramatically in the next few months, there are a lot of things I used to do that I can't anymore.  I won't be digging up and chopping out invading tree roots entering my garden beds. I won't shoveling out a trailer full of mulch to add to the garden soil to keep it enriched.  I won't be climbing the ladder to cut off droopy tree branches.

There are some psychological effects of reduced mobility.  Some of you understand that personally.  This is MY first experience with it.  I sit a lot when awake and I mentioned staying in bed many hours.  When awake, it is just easier to sit.  Oh, I move around regularly (cook dinner, do laundry, water plants, clean litterboxes, take trash and recycling bins to the street, etc.  

But I sit more because I'm depressed.  I don't (think) I mean clinically, I just can't do much these days and it is frustrating.  I actively want to, I just can't.  Carrying around a stepladder on ice is just too much for now.  

And I probably lay in bed more hours because "why get up"?  The waterbed is warm, soft, and comfortable.  And The Mews collect around me much of the time.  It is easy to just lay there in relative comfort.  It's more comfortable than sitting in the easy chair, and sitting in the easy chair is still more comfortable than walking around.  

As I said, I still "feel it" when I walk.  There is a difference between "can walk" and "comfortable walking".  One day, I will just notice I am walking again normally.   Or not.  There are just somethings you have to wait to find out about.  And some things I can do well enough and some things that make me hesitate...

For example, I looked at the birdfeeders today.  I have gone out in serious snowstorms to refill them in the past.  I got myself up to fill the thistle feeders yesterday.  Well, they are reachable from the ground.  But I looked at the 8' high black oil sunflower seed feeder and hanging suet cages.   

I sighed at having to carry the stepladder to the feeder (it feels heavy these days) but went into the basement to fill the tub with seeds and open 2 containers of suet.  No suet left...  I went upstairs and added suet to my shopping list.  The cardinals will have to find seeds at neighboring yards tomorrow.  I feel very guilty.  

Before I fell, I had a flock of 6 male cardinals and some number of females (they are harder to see).  I wasn't able to refill the feeder for a month+ afterwards. I refilled it once and was empty in a week.  Most have moved on.  Or maybe died (that's the "guilt" part).  I hope they are finding another neighbor who feeds them.  

They can probably find some seeds, but suet is high-density calories and they need that in Winter.  When the sleet stops tomorrow, I will put a pan of seeds on the deck rail.  They'll find it; I've done that before.  And go shopping...  But I bet suet is hard to find now.  

On the other paw, that means people are putting suet out for the birds and that is a comfort to me.  As long as they get it through these days when I can't provide it well, they will survive.

It was about time that I started to feel age creeping up on me.  I am glad it took a while, I am grateful for all those years.  But just as our pets have to go over The Bridge sometime, I am feeling "aging".  

Aside from the effects of the fall, I already had a "trick" right knee. It will just suddenly weaken randomly. I have some routine muscle cramps in the calves and thighs in bed, and rib cramps while awake the past few years.  More annoying then anything, but painful.

I have the occasional "finger-clench" finger thing that probably is a sign of oncoming Parkinson's.  It used to happen only when I did hard-gripping of heavy tools.  Now it surprises me when I haven't done much work.  My Mother had the "clench" and lead to Parkinson's, and it seems to be genetic.  So that seems to be in my future.

I'm grateful for all the many years without any problems, but age does catch up to you eventually.  This fall from the ladder is probably not going to help anything, LOL!  Hey, all you can do is take what life hands you...

Well, I better end this for today...

Birdie Surprise

While sharing the view of Birdie-TV with Ayla a few days ago while sritcinbg her on her windowsill, I noticed something odd.  At the goldfinch thistle-feeder, there was a bluish bird very likje te finches eating seeds.  There's a "blue finch"?

I tried to get a picture right away in case it was an "exotic" but it flew away too fast.  I had a pair of "exotics" once in a front yard tree.  I could only think of them as "small black egrets".  A few weeks later, I saw a 'Wild Bird Seed' store newsletter mentioning that a pair of "Enhingas" had been spotted in the area and it showed a picture.  That was them and they had spend time in MY yard!

The newsletter is a bookmark in my Peterson Guide.  They are tropical to semi-tropical.  Why they were here, no one knows.  There hadn't been a freak storm to pull them here.  Maryland is hardly even semi-tropical (though you wouldn't know that i most Julys and Augusts).

So I thought this might be something similar.  I considered flipping through my Peterson's Guide, but quite frankly, the internet is better.  I typed in "images of US blue birds"  It showed several and one was a direct match.  I have a male Indigo Bunting in my yard.  I've seen it at the feeder several times over a few days, so I hope it is staying here.  I hope there is a female and a nest.

Reading up on Indigo Buntings, I understand they are natural here and I am practically in the middle of their Summer range.  But I have never seen one before.  My guess is that my yard has slowly evolved into a place that attracts them.  They like wood edges and shrubs; insects and small seeds. 

Much of the backyard used to be wooded, but over the 33 years here, I have been changing it smaller specimen trees and shrubs.  I have planted a patch of meadow flowers and one for bee/butterfly/hummingbirds.   The yard is mostly organic (but I can't keep the poison ivy at bay with careful herbiciding).

So here's a free internet picture...


Wouldn't it be spectacular to see some male Indigo Buntings, Goldfinches, and a Cardinal in the same picture?

I've read there are Baltimore Orioles in my area too, but they stay high in trees and I've never seen one of those either.  That would be nice too. 

About Birds And Cats

I don't want to make a big thing about all this interest that cats have in birds.  But I saw another complaint about cats catching songbirds recently (elsewhere).  I understand that cats DO catch birds.  I understand that bird-lovers don't like cats very much because of it.   Well *I* love birds too.  It's not like I feed them to be food for my cats.  Black Oil sunflower and thistle seed is way too expensive (than the canned food the cats happily eat) for THAT to be worthwhile.

They probably catch voles, mice, and moles 100-1 compared to birds.  The neighborhood hawk, on the other hand, catches 4-6 birds per day (not usually from my feeders, of course, or I would have nonbe).  I see the scatterred feathers on the ground infrequently.  If we want to protect songbirds, kill hawks.

My cats stalk birds.  They also stalk squirrels (but never catch them - and I wish they could) and rabbits (and though they do catch the occasional young rabbit the world isn't going to run out of rabbits.  And my cats have a varied diet of beef, chicken, turkey, tuna, duck, and rabbit.  So if you are sad they eat rabbit (or any of the other animals), consider that they are eating rabbit because people raise them just to be eaten.  There are predators and prey (and that started about 500 million years ago).

There are more songbirds thriving here after I cleared the property somewhat than before I moved in 30 years ago.  I originally had a pair of Cardinals.  Today there are a dozen pairs.  I never saw a Goldfinch for the 1st few years, now there are some dozen of them.  I didn't even know what a Purple Finch was until they started nesting around the yard attracted to the feeders.  Between the thistle seeds and the black oil sunflower seeds and suet and peanut butter smeared on trees in Winter, I think there are more than 10X the birds here as when the lot was undeveloped.

When one of the cats catches a bird, it has to be pretty dumb (other than birdicide against a window).  I've observed it a couple of times.  The birds sits on a low shrub branch, one cat comes near it, the bird stares at the cat stupidly, and the cat grabs it.   DUH!  The dumbest bird in the flock has been removed from their gene pool, LOL!

Sometimes the attacks on cats as bird-killers bothers me,  so I wanted to give some personal experience.  Cats don't catch the smarter birds or many of them...

Put another way, I just saw a picture in a National Geographic magazine.  A hyena is carrying away a flamingo.  The flamingo is alive (its neck and head are upright) and not acting very distressed.  It doesn't seem to be struggling.  In fact, it seems to have no idea it is about to eaten alive by the hyena.  It is just like "huh" well, carry me other to that next pond, OK"?

Sorry, I go "off" sometimes, LOL!

Spring!

I am glad to say that Spring seems to finally be here for real.  Today was in the 70s and the long range forecast suggests that even the low temps will be in the 40s.  So I can safely get on with planting.

The earliest daffodils are all flower-down from stem freeze, but the new wave of flowers are opening.  There should be some good pictures soon.  The hyacinths that were completely absent last year (planted Fall 2015) are showing small flowers this year.  I am relieved they are alive at all.  I'll hope for a better show next year.  The tulips are emerging but not blooming yet.

I planted 25 astilbes in a re-dug bed last month.  I assume the cold isn't a problem for them since they a perennials.  I have another 25 for an island I created around a tree and 3' rock on the front yard.  Astilbes will appreciate the half shade AND they are listed as being deer-resistant, which matters in the front.  The deer ate most of my hostas last year so I am moving the survivors to the fenced-in back yard.  There are 2 kinds on large crinkly-leaved hostas the deer never touched so I will divide them into 1/4s and fill in the empty spots.  I have been tending toward more of the same plants in large masses, so that works too.

For too many years, I have planted "6 of this" "6 of those" etc.  Which is nice from 5' away, but looks rather jumbled from further away sort of like a pile of mixed tiles on a table.  I'm going for at least 25 sq ft of  the same plants for most of the beds.

EXCEPT I'm also going "cottage garden" along the 75'x 8' bed along the fence.  That should become a riot of self-sowing color of various height I hope!  And if I'm lucky, they should grow tall and thick enough to shade out the runner grass that showed up about 5 years ago and seems impossible to eliminate by digging them out.

Along with the new astilbe bed and the fence bed, I have 3 edged areas in the middle of the back yard.  One is a wildflower bed, one is for an invasive lychamistra, and one is for mostly spring bulbs where I am also planting dwarf butterfly bushes, dwarf roses, yuccas, and annuals that don't need much water (spring bulbs like dry summers).

The wildflower bed was initially planted last year.  I tilled the soil loosely and gaily scatterred seeds from a "wildflower" packet around.  I didn't get much.  So this year I bought specific wildflowers suited to partial shade and poor soil.  Some I planted inside in flats so that I know I have something growing to transplant randomly.  The rest I'll scatter and hope that Nature lets them grow.

And I'm cheating a bit.  I also bought a packet each for Bees, Hummingbirds, and Butterflys.  It might be a very odd-looking bed (about 30' x 15').

The lychimastra (I simply CANNOT ever remember how to spell that) bed is only 10' diameter.  But it is easy to mow around so they can't spread.  Indeed, I thought I killed them 2 years ago, but they keep coming back ("invasive" right, have to remember that).  I admire the purple foliage and the gold flowers are nice.  I just need to remember to shear off the dying flowers before the seeds spread.  Hedge trimmers are good for that.

The spring bulb edged bed is my real hope.  IF they ever grow.  Last year, the hyacinths never came up at all but have (weakly) this year.  This year 1/2 the daffodil flowers froze.  The tulips are looking promising.  And it is the closest bed to the deck.  I have the sunflower seed feeder in the center and there is always lots of activity there.  The birds go through enough seeds that the shells are pretty good mulch.  I might change the pole the feeder is on from an in-ground pole to a free-standing one I can move around to mulch other spots.

This is last year in April.  It will look like this soon, but I have 3x the daffodils and the tulips have multiplied a bit and I have gotten rid up most of the weeds...

I need to mark the spots where the existing tulips are (with cardboard pinned down with tent stakes) after the leaves are dying back so I know where to plant more between them this coming Fall. 

The finches are starting to color up.  I see slightly more gold on the males each day.  Boy can those guys EAT!  I have 2 tube feeders of Nyger seed and I have to refill them every day (about a qt/liter of seeds).  I buy the stuff in 50# bags and fill up qt bottles I've saved and store them in the basement freezer.  I order it from a local home project store, but sometimes it is available from Amazon too.  The 50# cost $75 which is $1.50 per pound; a lot better than the $2 to $2.50 per pound the small bags cost in local stores.

This is from April last year.  They aren't this gold yet, but will be soon.  I can't wait to see them like this again.  And it is good to know I'm helping them get there.  I have no doubt that I have the healthiest, brightest goldfinches in my area!

It is hard to count them, as they flutter around and fuss over perches, but I probably have at least 2 dozen.  I have about a dozen resident cardinals, a vague number of purple finches, a few woodpeckers, some doves, some titmice, some sparrows and and a few random other visitors at the black oil sunflower feeder.  The goldfinches eat more weight in seed than all the birds eating the sunflower seeds.

I watch them using a target range spotter-scope on a tripod.  That's a lot easier trying to hold binoculars in my trembley hands (DDT exposure as a teen, I suspect).  I should buy a serious camera for taking pictures of the birds too.

HAWKS!

WARNING, bird guts.  But not from cats...

There is a hawk around here lately.  I noticed it first a couple weeks ago.  It flew through the back yard catching nothing. 

Then last week, I happened to walk out onto the deck just as the hawk was going for a dove.  The hawk panicked and flew off.  The dove it was chasing panicked and crashed into the side of the house (flew away unharmed).

Yesterday morning, as the snow was falling, I looked out the bathroom window to see the finches at the thistle feeder and the other birds at the sunflower seed feeder.  None!  Huh...

Then right below the window, the hawk lifted off with some (ahem) mangled bird in its talons.  Well, that was sort of exciting; not something I've seen out the window before.

It took a few minutes to find out what happened (snow-blindness after just waking up from total bedroom darkness).  Then I found the spot.

It was some blackbird from the feathers.

The hawk apparently felt safe enough a few feet from the house!

And ate happily.

The other birds stayed away for 15 minutes.

I don't blame them.  But the lure of the feeders is strong.

They returned.  They have to.  Too much food.

I suspect that few birds live as long as they could.  They have many predators.  Hawks, weasels, snakes...  Cats too, but I doubt that cats kill as many as the other bird predators.  Hawks need a few birds every day.  So do weasels.  Snakes get some, but perhaps more eggs than adult birds.

So keep the cats from killing birds and it probably won't make much difference.  Fewer cats killing birds, more weasels and hawks.

But seeing that hawk fly off with the remains of the bird is caught WAS very impressive.

You never have a camera ready when the really SURPRIZE things happen!

Holiday Tree

I should have known not to buy an artificial Holiday Tree!  I don't like artificial things all that much.  And I didn't even go shopping to get one.  I was at a DIY store to buy furnace filters weeks ago, and there were all these nice-looking artificial trees so nicely decorated.  Two thoughts came to mind.

First, I recalled memories of younger days with the family decorating the tree, and I thought a nice artificial one would be "satisfactory", convenient, and cost-effective over the years.

Secondly, I had had to empty the attic a few months ago to have the attic sealed and additional insulation sprayed in, so I had all these boxes of Holiday decorations stacked up in the cat room.  The decorations were on my list of things to keep or donate.

So I was looking at the trees in the store and thinking of the all the decorations I'd collected over the years and ON IMPULSE I bought an artificial tree.  Impulse purchases are not my habit, but by definition "impulse" is not planned.

I opened the box today, and it was NOT what I expected.  I EXPECTED a box of a dozen or so stacking rings of perfectly formed branches that would be ready to go with a simple plug-in (and me adding special ornaments and my bubble-lights.  Foolish me!

Instead, there are only 3 sections (of branches that DO hinge down, to be fair).  But each branch is as tightly squeezed into a tube-like shape as wrapping paper.  Each individual stem and twig has to be bent out into a realistic shape.  A quick estimate suggested there would be 100 branches of about 20 stems per branch and 20 twigs per branch (= 40,000 if you really do it right).

A sample branch of the middle section took 2 minutes to make look realistic.  So, 2 minutes times 100 branches = 200 minutes (or 3 hours and 20 minutes).  And adding in some time for discomfort caused by handling the prickly plastic needles, hand-cramps from all that bending of stems and twigs, and back-cramps from being bent over and around reaching them, I decided that was more than I wanted to do in order to have a Holiday Tree!

I re-evaluated my concerns over killing live trees.  I guess if I am perfectly willing to have chickens and turkeys raised just for the purpose of being killed for my eating pleasure, I can stand having a real tree grown and cut down for my decorating pleasure.  At least trees just use sunlight and produce oxygen.

Hey, I can rationalize my decisions with the best of them, LOL!

That's IF I get a real cut tree...  I probably will, but it's not definite tonight.  I haven't bought one for a decade, so there may be sticker-shock involved.  I have to think about this.

Its not like there are children or visitors who would see my tree.  But it HAS been years since I decorated and I DO have all the boxes of decorations out of the attic already.  And none of the cats has ever experienced a real tree in the house and that might be interesting.  Skeeter and LC (and the cats who came before) always seemed to enjoy them.

I could justify buying a real tree just for the cats, I suppose...  Hmm, yeah, that could work.  A tree just for the cats.  And they wouldn't mind if I decorated it with cheap plastic ornaments at the bottom where they could reach to whap them.  They'd LIKE that...  I'll put the "good" stuff higher up.

And the birds would like it too.  I used to dig a hole in the backyard to set the tree in after I was done with it inside.  The tree leaves a bare spot under it even when it snows and the birds LOVE picking at the seeds I toss under it.  I had almost forgotten about that.

So, well of course, I'm not buying a live dead tree for ME, I'm doing it for the cats and then the birds.  What could POSSIBLY be more noble?

Oh my goodness!  I better go shopping for a real tree ASAP.  The cats are waiting, and the birds will be happier into the New Year, and the New Year is something to celebrate too...

Mark

A Surprise Visitor

Poor pictures, but the best I could get from through a window and far away.  I was in the house and saw a huge bird swoop into the backyard.  I intially thought it was a turkey due to the large body size. 

I assumed that if I opened the deck door for a clearer shot, it would fly away before I could get the camera to focus on it.  I was right about that.  When it DID finally fly away, the picture I got was so blurred it could have been anything from an elephant far away to a spider on the camera lens

But when it flew away, I could see it was obviously a vulture.   I couldn't imagine why a vulture would fly between and under trees.  There was nothing dead out there; I had been at that spot not long before.

The only thing I can think of is that the spot it landed was where a tree stump had been ground in January.  I had an old bag on corn gluten meal that had gotten damp and packed hard as dry brown sugar and I couldn't break it up well enough to use it in my lawn spreader.

So, thinking of what I could usefully do with it, I remembered that wood chips take a LOT of nitrogen from the soil.  Therefore, the fastest way to break down wood chips would be to put a LOT of nitrogen on them.  Corn gluten is very high in nitrogen...  So I had dumped the bag on the pile of wood chips and pounded it down into smaller clumps.  The rains have been dissolving it into the wood chips.

I know that vultures are said to hunt by sight, not smell, but there is a full leaf canopy overhead, and the vulture came in under the trees from downwind.  I think that it was attracted by some smell from a lot of nitrogen in one spot beginning to react with the older wood chips.

But it sure was strange...

Robin Nest

I discovered I have a robin nest in the saucer magnolia in front of the house!

I'm of two minds about this.


First, I do like birds in general, and I like to see young birds and nests.  I feed finches and cardinals and hummingbirds.  I was going to cut down a 5'  unwanted cedar sapling once, but stopped because I found a hummingbird nest in it.  That cedar is still unwanted and 15' high today, but if hummers like to nest in cedars, I will leave the cedar alone.

Second, I don't actually like robins.  They eat my worms and I really DO like worms.  They are good for the soil, do my garden nothing but good, and they don't bite.  I actually get annoyed watching a half dozen robins marching across the lawn in a row pulling up worms every few feet.

I LIKE my lawn worms.  I even go out after a rainstorm and pick them up off the driveway to toss back onto the lawn.  I rescue them from puddles.  When I am weeding the garden and they are frightened up to the surface by the disturbance, I toss them into shady spots under flowers so they can go back about their business.

I won't disturb the robin nest myself, but if something natural happened to it, I wouldn't mourn...

Feeding the Birds

Well, I sure didn't want to go outside and drag a stepladdder and a bucket of sunflower seeds to the birdfeeder today.  I had filled it before the last snowstorm, but I noticed that the birds seemed to be pushing into the feeder hard to get any seeds.

So out I went yesterday.  The snow is still 2' deep, and dragging a stepladder (and setting it up in the snow) is a pain.  Think about it.  Just to spread the ladder legs means holding it above the snow while you do that.  Even fiberglass ladders are heavy when you have to hold them up with one hand and open them with the other!

I have a routine for this.  I use a cleaned kitty-litter bucket to carry the seeds (it's plastic, has a handle, and fits inside the trash barrel I use to store the seeds).  The stepladder hangs on a rack on the side of the deck.  I fill the bucket to a premarked depth, bring it outside, set it down, lift the stepladder from the hanger, and carry both to the feeder. 

Once there, I climb the stepladder, unlatch the top of the feeder, set the top on the top od the ladder, climb down, pick up the seed bucket, pour the seeds into the top of the feeder, drop the bucket, put the top of the feeder back on, latch it, and carry the ladder and bucket back to the basement.

I sure wish I had a bird-feeder pole that I could just lower, fill, and raise!  I love having 10 pairs of cardinals and many finches, other birds, etc, but it gets hardest when they need the seeds the most.  And I ain't getting any younger!

I considered putting on my chest-waders, but that is really quite an effort.  I think I'll buy some hip-waders.  Those are easier to get into and they would be good for work in the ponds.

Sorry not to have taken any pictures.  I had feeding the birds on my mind, not camera work... 

But it sure was nice seeing the birds mobbing the birdfeeder.  Feeding them now in the hardest time means seeing more of them the rest of the year!

But here are previous pictures to show the activity...