I don’t think the birds like the snow covered bird feeders, especially the blue jay that tried to land on the feeder later and with the weight of the blue jay, the feeder tilted to the side and the snow slid off the roof and showered the jay.
Snow Covered Feeder
Instead of the “picture of the day”, today’s photo is the “picture of the night” as I had a visitor in my backyard during overnight. It didn’t take long for the bear to break the bird feeder pole down but took him about 20 minutes to eat the bird seed from the broken feeder. Then he wandered around the yard for a while and eventually came up to the porch to check out the bird feeder there too before disappearing back into the night.
Night Time Furry Visitor
I thought a bird decided to wear a fur hat since it was below freezing again this morning until the seed thief revealed himself from the far side of the bird feeder. I guess he heard that more snow was predicted and he needed to re-stock his cache of seed.
Seed Thief
The pair of wood ducks were checking out a duck house this morning, before the snow came so I wonder if they will head south now. And the spring birds are not the only birds having trouble finding food this evening as even the winter birds had problems locating seeds in the snow covered feeder.
Snow Covered Feeder
The snow storm sure moved in quickly as only a few small flakes were coming down when I filled the bird feeders. But twenty minutes later, the snow was coming down rather heavy and plastered snow over the bird feeder covering the seed tray. The one chickadee looked confused why the seed disappeared so I know once it stops snowing, I will have to remove that white stuff.
Seed Lost in the Snow
Yesterday I spotted a bald eagle flying over my house and I was hoping it would land in my trees, but instead it landed in the neighbors tree. But with the very squeaky snow in the cold morning, I didn’t get too close to it for a picture before the eagle flew off. The eagle and other birds might not like me getting close, but the chickadees do since I scare the other birds away from the feeder and they can finally get some bird seeds. But once I leave, the poor chickadees have a hard time getting a spot with the redpolls, nuthatches, purple finch, goldfinch and woodpeckers.
Long Lunch Line
Some of the birds are complaining that I haven’t cleaned the snow off the bird feeder when they do adventure out from under the snow laden pine branches but it is still snowing so it will get reburied in that cold white stuff.
First Snow
I don’t know what changed this year; whether more of the baby orioles survived or there is a better communication system pointing to the feed lunch but I am having trouble keeping the sugar water feeders and grape jelly can filled. The hummingbirds have to take a number as I have seen three orioles on the sugar water feeder at the same time and more than a half dozen lined up at the jelly, at least until the male Baltimore Oriole shows up. He scares the rest away so he can have it all to himself but the smaller Orchard Oriole male (the dark bird in the picture) has no trouble eating with the other females and youngsters.
Unlike many other fruit-eating birds, Baltimore Orioles seem to prefer only ripe, dark-colored fruit like the deepest-purple grapes and will ignore green grapes and yellow cherries even if they are ripe. I guess that is why they like the grape jelly over other types of jelly. The orioles forage for insects, drink nectar from flowers and eat berries. According to the All About Birds website, Orchard Orioles “sometimes visit hummingbird feeders or eat orange slices or jelly at feeding stations.” Well the sometimes seems to be a constant thing this year with the number of jars of jelly and bags of sugar I have gone through so far this season.
The Grub Line
Watch the video below to see the crowded grub line.
The bird feeder this morning looked like a busy airport and it may need air traffic controllers to route the birds in. With a very cold start of the day at -18ºF, the birds (and squirrels) are trying to fill up on seed.
Air Traffic Controller Needed
