More snow.
Lots of Pine Siskins at all three feeders making the Juncos grumpy as they have to sit on the sidelines and watch the Siskins feed.
Heh.
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Snow
Woke to find a great deal of snow. Measured with a ruler and found 16 cm had fallen on the patio railing. I swept it off to make a platform for the juncos who happily munched on the thistle and crushed sunflower seeds.
Maggie enjoyed her walk, chest deep in snow, pushing through like a furry snow-plough.
We (the dog and I) tried to build a snow bear/dog in the front yard but it wound up looking like a kangaroo so I put a joey in the pouch to make it seem I knew what I was doing.
Cedar Waxwings = Total Joy
I was just leaving my block on a walk when I heard birds making calls I did not recognize. It turned out to be Cedar Waxwings flocking up ( okay, maybe only five) in my neighbour's tree. I couldn't believe it as I hadn't seen any for a few years. I hurried back to my house and grabbed the binoculars and saw, sure enough, that they were, indeed, Cedar Waxwings. One of them obligingly showed me his white undertail so I could properly ID the Waxwing as a Cedar and not a Bohemian, which has a rusty coloured undertail.
The beautiful blue-green cloud I had been admiring turned out to be, to my chagrin, a hail cloud. Thankfully, the hail was tiny and not like the large sizes of Calgary's fist-sized stones ( as my husband likes to point out every time the word 'hail' is mentioned).
Bird Caller
Took the bird call to the woods today and squeaked it for around 40 seconds. Nothing happened. No birds came all curious to see what the noise was about. Although a juvenile Bald Eagle flew over my head about twenty-five fee up and did a circle around and then flew off. Then a second one launched itself out of the top of a Western Hemlock and followed the first. Could be coincidence though, since Bald Eagles hang around that part of the forest. I have seen them before.
I used the bird call a little further into the woods when I heard the Kinglets high in the treetops. They stopped calling and no bird came down to investigate. The only thing it did was greatly upset a wren who called repeatedly.
p.s. I think I won't use the bird caller anymore. I can't justify using something which upsets birds to satisfy my curiosity. If I happen to catch sight of them, then lucky me, but mimicking a bird in distress to get the other birds to come and investigate just borders on the sadistic.
p.p.s.
Very excited. Spotted my first Purple Finch today at the feeder. I've been wondering if I would be able to recognize the difference, the House and the Purple being so similar. Now that I have witnessed the Purple Finch, there is no mistaking the colour as the Purple is indeed a blue-red and the House, an orange-red. If in any doubt, the Purple does not have the brown cap that the House Finch sports.
Downy
Spotted a Downy at the suet feeder today. ( No, unfortunately not Robert Downy Jr.) He didn't stay long even though he could ft very comfortably through the cage bars like the juncos do and could sit and eat at his leisure. For a moment I couldn't figure out if he was a Downy woodpecker or a Hairy woodpecker as they are so close in markings and colouring. Then I remembered "DD". "Downy" is "Diminutive" and so, therefore much smaller than the Hairy. That can also be tricky to figure out if you don't have the two birds side-by-side to compare sizes. Am I right? I figure though, that if he can fit easy as kiss-the-back-of-my-hand (to quote Jack Aubrey) into the feeder cage, then it must be the Downy.
I also forgot to mention the flock of Pine Siskins that came by for about five minutes. They sat on the apple tree while a few dabbled at the feeder. Wouldn't you know it, those pesky Starlings came by and drove them off. (Starlings, I do love your plummage and weird metallic calls but you are SO annoying.)
It does make me want to get a thistle feeder though, not just to entice the Siskins to hang about longer but also for the Black-capped Chickadees. I can only seem to get two B-caps in the garden and I'm not sure why, as we buy high quality black sunflower seed. I wonder if there are too many juncos at the feeders.
Steller's Jays
The Steller's Jays are very clever you know. They now come to the fig tree and look into the art room. They can clearly see me and wait patiently for me to go into the kitchen and get their peanuts. (Yeah, patiently, without screeching... amazing.) They then follow with a short flutter to the patio and await their handout.
(Warning: I do and will go on and on about the jays. They are just all kinds of awesome.)
Crows and Raccoons
Snow is slowly melting around the neighbourhood under the relentless drizzle of rain. Further up the hill, one can see snowfall fresh on the slopes.
Finally got some peanuts at the bird store as well as one of those wooden and rosin bird calls. I've always read about them but never have tried one. Perhaps, if Maggie is not too limpy we can go up to the wooded park to entice the Kinglets from the treetops.
The crows were making a huge fuss near the front of the house this morning. One by one, they were alighting upon the telephone poles and wires, making an enormous racket. Watching about 25 crows letting it rip was something to see. I suspected there was a cat hiding somewhere although I was puzzled by their intense hatred. I finally saw what was causing the frenzy when a very harassed raccoon ran, all humpty-backed, across the street to hide in the bushes.
White Christmas
How quickly the days pass, Dec 5th being the last entry. Weather has been for the most part sunnier and drier than the previous December. Christmas Day turned out to be a white Christmas after all. Morning drizzle changed to snow as we chatted, drank coffee and looked out of the living room window. It started to slowly melt on Boxing Day but then, when we awoke this morning found that another snowfall had coated everything in white once again.
We have run out of peanuts the past few days and the crows and jays come by and wait and wait. We threw out a handful of mixed nuts that usually go into the tube feeders, but they weren't very impressed. Who knew corvids were a picky lot? Yeesh.
Crow Games
While I was watching out the window, doing my bird count for the week, I saw a crow playing mid-air. He had a piece of food or maybe a twig and would fly quite high and let it drop. He would then plummet to catch it. He repeated this manouver until I lost sight of him behind the fir tree. How cool is that?
It's always the way, you think nothing is happening outside and a quick glance out of the window seems to confirm this. I find though, that after a small interval of time quietly watching, something new is always seen.
Snow
A very snowy weekend. The snow stayed on the ground long enough for the park and Boulevard to be filled with people making snowmen and forts by the dozen. Teenagers, normally too cool to be amazed by anything, had fallen to their knees and were scraping snow into their arms, and with a lurching run, would deposit it in piles some ways over to facilitate in whatever structure they were making. By around three in the afternoon the next day, it began to rain and that was that. It warmed up to +4 and then to +12 by Monday. Heary rain followed unfortunately and caused a lot of flooding in the valley.