Design

Our bird feeder was hopping today -- Eastern Towhees, Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, and Tufted Titmice. It was COLD today, with highs around 18°F, and a wind chill factor making it feel about 2°F.  We ventured forth for a bit of exercise (taking Mocha out and 'working out' at the local Y for awhile), but otherwise, we hung about indoors.

An enjoyable part of feeding birds is watching them, of course. And we've been having a lot of fun watching the American goldfinches visiting the thistle feeder here in the mountains. The activity is huge on the covered platform feeder; not only do we see the usual cardinals, tufted titmice, Carolina chickadees, and nuthatches, but also the Eastern towhees, who apparently think the platform isn't that different than the ground. But the goldfinches are striking and always nice to see. This evening there were 3 of them visiting the feeder shortly before dusk.

In the mountains, our thistle and sunflower seed feeders received non-stop activity in early evening. Goldfinches ate niger seeds. Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, Northern Cardinals and White-Breasted Nuthatches took turns at the other feeder, after we refilled the box with black oil sunflower seeds. We still have hummingbirds visiting the jewelweed patches, although having feeders up for them in a weekend place isn't really practical (or healthy for hummingbirds). At home in the Piedmont of SC, we're still seeing ruby-throated hummingbirds at our flowers and feeders, but they've started to head south. We'll probably see the last visitor in mid-October, based on previous years. Check out Operation RubyThroat to post your observations about what you see in the Eastern U.S. and Canada (where we see Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds from late spring to early fall). Bill Hilton, at Hilton Pond Natural History Center , an expert natural history investigator on hummingbird...

I arrived in the mountains this afternoon on a quick overnight trip, to find goldfinches inhaling seeds from the thistle feeders. They had been absent last weekend (we'd brought the feeders in after our last visit). But they were avidly consuming seeds today. The sunflower feeder was horizontal, presumably knocked over by a racoon or an opposum or wind (I don't think the young bear has made a reappearance). I filled it up (at least temporarily) and the cardinals made a rapid reappearance.

Sitting at my computer this morning, a furry blur caught my eye. On top of one of the feeders. One with a squirrel baffle. Hhrmph. I took a closer look. But, it was hard to be too annoyed. This rascal had suspended him/herself from the top of the feeder and was munching away. Quite amazing. I have no idea how it had managed to get there -- maybe leapfrogging across the tops of the other feeders from the nearby dogwood? My gardening companion thinks that it probably leaped down from the big Southern red oak -- this feeder used to be in the open, but things are growing well this year. I mean, really -- this squirrel was dangling there for ages chowing down, before I went outside and it nimbly scampered up the thistle feeder to leap into the dogwood.

In my non-wildlife gardening days, I figured birds were on their own. There's generally plenty of food out there, I thought, although habitat might be in short supply. But putting out bird feeders (sunflower seed, thistle seed, and suet) some years ago opened a new arena of observation. All of the usual suspects (speaking in 'now' terms) appeared -- and they're great -- I know all the songs and call of our regular garden birds, and whether they eat seeds or suet, or kick up insects in the leaf litter or eat earthworms in the spring. In the mountains, we added all of these, and it didn't take long for the seeds to be discovered. There was a parade of cardinals, tufted titmice, and Carolina chickadees at the sunflower seed feeder, and this male goldfinch loaded up.