Cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, my eye was arrested by the sight of a lonely bluebird huddled on top of the nesting box in falling snow. The temperature was 18 degrees, and I could only imagine that, despite his fluffed out feathers, the little fellow was feeling a bit cold. Grabbing my camera, I …
Monday musings
My calendar insists that today is March 4th. In sixteen short days, we will observe the spring equinox, the astronomical first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere; in other words, the first official day of spring! Here in Ohio, we will "spring forward" next weekend, turning our clocks an hour ahead for the beginning …
Backyard bird gallery
Male Eastern bluebird Weatherwise, February is usually a dreary month along the south shore of Lake Erie, but this year Valentine's week brought a few birds to the backyard buffet that I hadn't seen in a long while, most notably the beautiful male bluebird and the red-breasted nuthatch pictured above. To be honest, the birds …
Confused by the weather
Since the beginning of the year, our weather has been unsettled, or maybe I should say unsettling. We've had snow, extreme cold, and now rain. Glancing out the kitchen window this morning, I noticed an empty hopper feeder. Slipping on my jacket and boots, I sloshed out and refilled the feeder. A short while later, …
Too cold for trailwalking
As I warned in my last post, right after spotting the red-bellied woodpecker above, our temperatures plummeted and for the past several days have hovered around zero (F). Yesterday the high temp here along the south shore of Lake Erie peaked at zero degrees Fahrenheit and went down from there. The "feels like" temp, given …
Is it vacant now? A bluebird catastrophe
A story I didn't have the heart to tell until now. Mr. Bluebird has just peeked into the nesting box. Perched on top, Mrs. B. is wondering if the box is available. "Have the sparrows left?" she queries. "Can we move in?" (That's my guess at their conversation based on their actions and the expressions …
Simply backyard birding
This week has been hot and steamy, absolutely my least favorite kind of weather; however, yesterday afternoon a storm blew through. The temperature dropped and the steamy humidity dissipated. Yay! Today has been blissfully cool. Exactly the kind of weather I enjoy! Apparently the birds like it too because they were a lot more active …
Darn spring cleaning!
Sometime things around the house require my attention. I try not to let that happen too often, but when it does, and I begin to trip over the dust bunnies, something has to be done about them. That has happened to me recently. Consequently, I haven't been out on the trail with my camera very …
Morning Surprises!
You can see from the pictures above that "someone" flipped open the hopper feeder, helped him or herself to all the birdseed inside, and left behind a puzzled and confused squirrel. The first time this happened, I was surprised, but now it happens almost daily. I'm actually surprised when it doesn't happen. If I looked …
Early sign of spring!
"As to the garden, it seems to me its chief fruit is-blackbirds." ~ William Morris ~Then I know for sure that spring has arrived!
SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL 