Backyard Birds

About a year ago, I wrote about two new bird feeders that we hung at the back of our house.  One was a double-decker seed feeder, and the other was called a bark butter feeder.  You can read about those in For The Birds.

Just a few weeks ago, we added two more feeders to this location -- a suet feeder and another type of feeder for bark butter.  Our kitchen window looks out onto this porch, and we get a really good view of all the birds coming back and forth to the feeder throughout the day.

Last Friday, we had a little bit of snow and a lot of sleet and rain, so my husband chose to work from home.  It was a good decision because his company ended up sending everyone home around lunchtime, which is a very unusual occurrence.

Since it was so cold and nasty, we had lots of traffic at the bird feeders.  I decided to see if I could capture some decent pictures with the point and shoot camera, and I did manage to get a few.  This is the male Downy Woodpecker (sorry about the fuzzy image).

Then my husband set up the big camera on the tripod, and I took a lot more pictures, and when he logged off from work, he took some photos, too.

These are not high quality or high resolution pictures.  I had to photograph through the glass window and the screen on the porch.  In addition, the weather was nasty, so the lighting was not very good.  Never the less, I wanted to share some of the pictures so you can see the variety of birds we've been attracting with the bark butter and the safflower seeds.

My husband had completely filled the two bark butter feeders, but hadn't yet re-filled the seed feeder when we took these pictures.  The seed in the lower half of this feeder is safflower seed, and the Cardinals, Finches, Chickadees, and Tufted Titmice really like it.  The top level of the feeder just has a mixed blend in it.

In this picture you can see a Carolina Chickadee (bottom left) and three Purple Finches on the feeder.  The two yellow bars to the left of the feeder turned out to be a reflection from inside the kitchen.

A Tufted Titmouse -- grainy picture again.

The Mockingbirds recently discovered our bark butter, and they visit daily.  I wouldn't mind, but they tend to be bullies and chase the smaller birds away.

I think he was trying to re-gain his balance here.  He's almost too big for these feeders, but he visits and eats none the less.

Food in mouth, he's giving the photographer quite an angry look.  :)

This guy is our resident Red-bellied Woodpecker.  He's one of my favorites.  He's so big, yet he's not such a bully and he's very people shy.

If you look carefully, you can see he's got a big chunk of bark butter in his beak here.

The Carolina Wren -- small, but very bossy.

And my favorite part of the day...Blue Birds!

This is our new feeder for bark butter, and I think it's so cute.  You spread the bark butter on both sides, and it gets into the individual holes.  There is a perch on either side, so two birds can feed at once without having to see each other, plus they have a little roof over their head.  The Blue Birds really love this feeder.

I think we got a visit from all our favorite birds on that rainy, snowy day.  It was cold, and our feathered friends were hungry.

This is my other favorite bird who has recently started to visit us...

I cropped some of these pictures so you can get a closer view; this is a White-breasted Nuthatch.  He always lands on the chain and then moves down headfirst to the feeder.  I have also seen him travel down this branch headfirst.  The Nuthatches are classified as tree-clinging birds, along with Woodpeckers and Creepers.

The White-breasted Nuthatch has coloring and markings similar to a Blue jay, but the Nuthatch is more gray-blue and not as brightly colored as a Blue jay.

The Red-bellied Woodpecker doesn't eat safflower seed, but he likes the mixed seed and the bark butter.  He curls himself into all sorts of positions to get his beak into the seed feeder.

It's hard to see, but there's a Carolina Chickadee at the top of this chain, and the Tufted Titmouse is staring up at him.  I love Chickadees -- they're the sweetest little birds.

Here's one of the Chickadees all puffed up.

This Blue Bird may have been the funniest picture of the day.  :)

And this was one of the prettiest.  I'm sorry we couldn't get clearer images, but it was definitely too cold and nasty to take the camera outside.

 

Have a great week and may the Blue Bird of Happiness visit your feeder soon.  Thank you for visiting!

Denise

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