Things with wings

This was a lone visitor this morning at our peanut gallery. I can't tell what it is. I used to think we were getting all crows at the nuts. Then someone told me we also have ravens. And pretty frequently we hear, unambiguously, ravens in the neighbourhood. So this may be a raven. Or a "craven" as the crosses are called. ____________ EDIT, half-hour later: "Maybe." But probably not. A much more expert birding friend tells me the visual evidence here is of an American crow, not of a raven.

The cygnet is getting to be nearly as large as its parents but they don't let the youngster get very far and they look threateningly at anyone who gets too close. This is at a local pond, about a half-hour's walk from our house. There had been three other eggs in the nest late in June, and they all hatched, but only this one survived.

Maybe the last that *I* will see, anyway. It was warm yesterday when I took the picture and it was just as warm today. But today I didn't go where the butterflies might have been hanging around. It appears to be a cabbage white butterfly, by the way. I had chased him from hawkweed to alder before I got this picture.

I followed this bird and its little flock (about five birds) around the backyard until I got this shot. Then I went back to what I was doing. Pine grosbeaks are known as mopes around here for their ability to stand the close presence of us human beings.

Our old cat Minnie died a week or two ago. She left behind a substantial estate of foods and other things. But like all cats, she died without a will. We have thus appointed ourselves as executors of her estate. We're gradually dispersing it. The crows are among the first beneficiaries. Minnie would have approved. This crow has a large craw and it's full. But there's enough in the estate to last at least a couple of weeks. Despite the greedyguts that the birds are.

We feed the bluejays, crows, juncos and whatever other birds want to take part in the feasts. A half-dozen times or so a day -- whenever we are called upon by the birds -- we bring a handful of nuts out to them. With the winter weather coming we will soon put out a couple of seed feeders. Right now we're working our way through our recently dead cat's supply of dry food. It's not only nutritious, but the birds love it. That is what this guy was tucking into this morning when I took this picture. The cat would have approved.

Yeah yeah, you know them as juncos. My father always called them snowbirds. This one and his ilk have been filling up on the suet and the crushed peanuts as another post-tropical storm moves in on us. (Not much wind this time, but around 50mm of rain. That's more than enough in a few hours.)

The rain, a cold leftover from Post-tropical Storm Nicole, is getting heavier by the hour. The birds are all face-and-eyes into the suet and nuts. Here a pitchypee (chickadee) is waiting its turn at the suet.

Family outing, maybe. We had four Northern flickers at our deck this morning, all together: one female and three males (like this one). They were gathering up bits of suet plus digging up peanuts that the bluejays had stuck in flower pots and the like. No flies on the flickers.

I have no idea why Flickers are actually called Flickers. But I like to think it is because of their prodigiously long tongues which they flick out at their food. This morning in the rain. Picture turnt a bit to help make up for my own unplumb view.

By way of comparison to the long-tongued flicker, the very vocal starling has a short but clearly agile tongue. This one is wet from the heavy rain this morning. He's eating a lump of cat treat which he has behind his tongue, ready to go down the hatch.

We were eating breakfast when my wife said, "Oh look -- two raspberry finches!" (She's like me -- she knows they are officially called purple finches, but she doesn't care.) They were right outside the window eating the wax balls. They carried one off to a nearby fence but dropped it. Then they left on their morning jaunt. Uhh, wax balls: you know -- snowberries, Symphoricarpos albus. Sheesh.

Since over a year ago, we've noticed from time to time (and especially when there's a storm of some sort), a chickadee sleeping on a tiny shelf near the roof of our front porch. I went out there this evening, just after sunset before it got too dark, and just before the rain started, and took this picture of him. (The light casting shadows is from streetlights.) We avoid using the front door or turning on the light there where he is visiting. He stays the night and is always gone by morning light.

Last winter we had a lone white-throated sparrow hanging out all winter with some of the local juncos. This fellow showed up a few days ago and I suspect it is the same bird.

My better birding buddies tell me that this bird, one in a crowd of a hundred juncos hanging out at our feeder the past couple of days, is not the usual sort of junco for these parts, but a 'white-winged dark-eyed junco' better known a few thousand kilometres west of here.

After a hard night of wind and cold rain, Sharpie makes her appearance at the back door. "Excuse me, sir. Sorry for interrupting your breakfast. You wouldn't happen to have any little birdies you wouldn't be needing? Fine little birdies. Heh."

It was gleaming outside the window today with purples and golds.

This fellow is Number Forty-Two on our Kitchen Window List. (Yes: we have a "List." We didn't used to but it just gradually came into being. Now I feel a competition with myself.) It's not a very sharp picture but enough to identify him: a Yellow-throated warbler. He showed up for some suet early this morning. I was half-expecting him. He had been visiting a suet feeder a couple of hundred metres away from us a few days ago. And one of the flickers had chopped up lotsa suet for him from the suet holder above. Those flickers are pigs but the other birds appreciate it. Even though it is mid-December, the weather's been mild and there are a half-dozen warblers who have apparently decided to try their luck to spend the winter around this town, St. John's, Newfoundland, when all their relatives decamped a couple of months ago for more southern climes.