Speaking Of Birds
I’ll end April with this photo – inspired by SK’s mention of Cedar Waxwings.
One thing I noticed when I lived back east is that the birds seem more colorful in general. Perhaps the environment is more varied than out here. We have colorful birds – Western Tanagers and Lazuli Buntings come to mind, but most seem to be colored for camouflage in dry environments.
One of the birds I watched in Virginia were the Eastern Bluebirds. I got this one sitting on a fence in our yard in Virginia.
We get all kinds of colorful birds up here in northern Michigan, especially when Spring comes around. Still waiting for many to arrive. Here’s a photo from last August of what we call a ghost turkey that wanders around our neck of the woods.
Turns out I may end up visiting the Gaylord region come mid-August. (I’ll have to stack about 2 weeks of posts ahead of time). If memory serves well – and it may not – I recall wintergreen and low-bush blueberries being ripe that time of year up there.
If that’s the case, DT, and you’d like a home cooked meal, hit me with an email. My Lovely Melis is pretty handy in the kitchen. After dinner a bourbon and cigar would also be offered.
I may take you up on that. Be great to meet some of Gerard’s followers in person. But that’s three months away and plans are subject to Murphy. Just preliminary thoughts right now; I’ll know more in late July. Be sometime week of 8/10 if it happens
Here’s another photo of the Pileateds that come by every day to hit my homemade suet feeder. That photo is from April 10.
Now that’s a good idea right there, I’m gonna make one.
Couple weeks ago I melted some beef fat down and filled a cottage cheese container with sunflower seeds, then poured the fat in and set it in the fridge to set up. Next day I set it on the porch railing and over night it disappeared. Haven’t seen it since.
All I did was take about a 20 inch long piece of cottonwood, bored 5 2 inch holes about 2 inches deep each, and then stuffed the holes with suet. A box of latex gloves comes in handy for stuffing the holes. The Pileated were having a challenging time feeding on suet in a traditional suet cage, so the log was my solution. It’s used by all the woodpeckers up this way, not to mention the song birds that can figure out how to get a grip on the log.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about bird feathers and their colors. Apart from the cedar waxwings, there are blue jays, blue birds and indigo buntings. Then cardinals and house finches in the red family plus all the red headed and bellied woodpeckers. Then encouraged by the thistle seed in one feeder, I’ve been inundated with gorgeous little gold finches. Tack a few oranges to your tree in these midwest parts and the orioles will come. In the evening the delicate swifts and barn swallows, also tinged with rose and blue, swoop around cleaning the air of winged insects. All in all, a day long, joyful flitting and fluttering rainbow of colors.
Beautiful picture, DT. Before we downsized, Northern Bluebirds would sit (briefly) on a fence at the edge of our property but they were always too far
away to see properly. Living in a condo that outlaws feeders, I get really excited when I see a bird now. On a walk yesterday, thanks to SK, I think I may have heard a Cedar Waxwing. Again, it was too far away to see properly but it had a little back-sweeping tuft of feathers on its head and a non-stop piping tune I’d never heard before.
Clever wording JD.
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