Things with wings

I don't think Ezra Pound would much mind me twisting his famous poem. After all, his poem was a twist anyway. Today our first two pine siskins showed up. In a few weeks we'll probably have hundreds of them at our feeders.

This flicker sat there for ten minutes, just groovin on the vibe, before she flew the two or three metres to the suet.

It is very dark and very wet this morning. That doesn't stop the finches from flooding our feeders. And among them this male purple finch. He tends to be less aggressive than his goldy cousins, and indeed than his two purple-not-purple consorts (uhh, immatures or females: I can't tell the difference). So he sits well for portraits.

An American goldfinch sitting in the soon-to-be-Christmas tree outside the kitchen window. These goldfinches are the most numerous species hanging about at our feeders right now. Probably 80% of what we see are goldfinches

We've had this one visiting mourning dove for the past month or so. She is easily spooked by my presence, as she was here -- she'd been lying comfortably on the rail in the rain but she saw me, stood up (here) and then flew to the bushes below. I expect she will be back soon.

Breakfast this morning for a couple of visitors in a little dwy of snow.

It was very cold overnight, just below minus fourteen in our neighbourhood, and first thing this morning the flickers got frisky with one another. They were doing this dance for ten minutes while I watched and took pictures from the window. Eventually they disappeared. And later the female came back for peanuts.

In many other parts of North America, this bird is commonplace. But here, on the island of Newfoundland, they are not. I never saw one until ten years ago, and I'm past seventy now. This winter we've had a pair hang out with us, and they have decided that the space under the Christmas tree I put on the deck outside the kitchen door is their preferred spot. This morning the temperature started warm, above 14 C. During the course of the morning, heavy rain started and the temperature started to drop. Now, not four hours after I took the picture, the temperature is just above freezing. We expect freezing rain for the next day or so. With that we expect to lose our electrical power. Fingers crossed.

Around here, on the island of Newfoundland to call a bird a "pigeon" is ambiguous. In the city, where I live, it is clearly understood to mean this sort -- what used to be offcially called a rock dove but which nowadays is apparently just as officially known as a rock pigeon. All my life they've been a common urban sight in the downtown, and in recent decades, elsewhere through the city. Outside the city, though, the word "pigeon" normally refers to the black guillemot, a bird that would never deign to stand on my deck rail which overlooks no salt water.

I noticed it was quiet at the bird feeder and also that a junco was stock-still in the fir tree on our deck. Methought, "There must be a hawk." And there was: this sharp-shinned hawk, his head turning back and forth as he searched for a bird to take. He waited for over 45 minutes in a tree, attentive to everything, including me. Then he finally gave up the wait. Five minutes after he was gone, the littler birds were out feeding again.

There are two, sometimes three, flickers that have pretty well exclusive access to our suet. They easily scare off the smaller birds like juncos and chickadees when they are in the flickers' way. But today, after sixty-odd cm of snow, a phalanx of starlings, each nearly as big as a flicker, were trying to get at the suet. This flicker was having nothing to do with their usurpation. He made himself look big, with a dangerous bill and lunged at them. The starlings didn't reciprocate much, but they weren't put off by him either. They'd just shuffle in closer from the sides and above, and drive him into another frenzy. Finally, there were just too many starlings for him, and he left the scene.

Yammering on about something or other.

Some pretty the starlings are.

The goldies are greenish, and the purples deep rose. Why they're called what they are called, there's no one who knows. ------------- This was during today's blizzardy snow storm.

Two purple finches (male and female) and a goldfinch.

The first red crossbill to visit in a couple of months. Last winter we had flocks of them almost every day.

After hearing a bump against the side of the house I came downstairs to see this through the kitchen window. It was already too late to save the mourning dove, so I watched for a minute and then closed the blinds. I checked back now and again. After the hawk was gone, I went out and cleaned it up. I could have left it for the crows. But it was too close to dark and I think I would have just invited some neighbourhood rats to a feast if I left it. A friend tells me her father used to call bird feeders "hawk feeders." Of course he was right. And who am I to distinguish among the birds I feed?

Apparently not a *true* underwing, the "Large yellow underwing" has no trouble holding its name. The upperwings, here beneath the underwings, are plain browns, while the underwings are a bright orange, with that striking black bar. I never saw one until recent years. They are a recent invader of these parts. I mistook this fellow, based on his orange upper side, for a European skipper. But I have been corrected. I took pictures of both the up-side and the down-side but I particularly like this one of his underside aspect. He was dead when we found him sitting inside the door of the fireplace. He'd probably been there since autumn, though we had used the fireplace a few times. Where he was was warm enough to dry out but not hot enough to burn. A kind of Limbo. The very vestibule of the inferno.