Feeding Wild Birds

[sourland]

Our snow left about a week and a half ago. Maples are blooming and bees are working them.

 

[R2elk]

Our snow left about a week and a half ago. Maples are blooming and bees are working them.

I have gotten 43 7/8" of snow so far this month. The elms started blooming before the big snowstorms. The bees didn't make it through February.

 

[R2elk]

 

[sourland]

78F at 3:30 PM and the spring peepers at the club are shouting their love songs.

 

[sourland]

Yesterday a turkey hen showed up at the home bird feeder. Today she is back with a friend and a suitor. As the hens eat he has been putting on a show in the back yard. Fanning, strutting and shuffling about. He's a beauty.

 

[sourland]

Phoebes have returned to the beagle club. No tree swallows have returned yet.

 

[Sequel]

About 6 maybe 7 years ago my neighbor Jack hung a shovel in a plum tree, probably so he could find it. He ended up getting cancer and never made it back up the hill. He’s been gone a couple years now and every spring a Red breasted sapsucker drums on that thing. Jack was retired Army and was extremely tidy. I’ve thought a few times it might be him saying “Will someone put this shovel in the shed?” Nah.. it’s way better right where it is! I did get very lousy video of it which I sent to Jack’s wife.

 

[sourland]

Dueling woodpeckers this morning. There is a hollow tree in the West hedgerow that the woodpeckers/flickers love to drum on. This morning one was drumming, and in the distance from the East another was answering - pretty neat.

 

[sourland]

Finally a female Redwing has appeared at my home feeder. Two or three males have been feeding here, and two are courting her. None have shown up at the beagle club feeder. Perhaps the 20+ sex starved males are scaring them off?

 

[sourland]

Pheobe nest is 3/4 complete. Toads started singing today. Light rain tonight - they'll be laying eggs tomorrow. I think spring is here, but no female redwings or tree swallows yet.