This Is Getting Ridiculous!

This bird watching stuff is cutting into my reading time.

I wanted to say my housekeeping time, but I hate to flat out lie.

I can't even sit at the table and stay long enough to eat a meal. That's a shame, that right there is.

But the Rose Breasted Grosbeaks have called their cousins and a few minutes ago there were five male Grosbeaks and two female ones. They were all fussing around the suet feeder, but when the Red Bellied Woodpecker showed up, they sat sweetly on the branch until  he finished.

He's bigger, so I guess he pulled rank. Actually, he totally ignored them. The male Cardinal joined them once.

Maybe the suet we bought specifies birds with red on them only.

And  here's something I don't understand: One of the males keep smacking into a window. He's got four other REAL Grosbeaks to fight with, which he doesn't, so why slam into my window? He even left little red and white feathers on the glass.

And don't preach to me about bird safety! I got all kinds of stuff hanging in my sun room windows so birds can easily see they can't fly through them.  That's why I figure he saw his reflection enough that he was fighting, like Cardinals and Blue Birds do.

It's a real trip to watch the male Blue Bird fight himself in the side mirror of the car.

Now, I've always thought bird watchers (the serious ones) were....strange. I thought they needed to find something to do. I figured  unless you were a cat, there was a little something loose up there in the old noggin.

I've always been a bird listener, sitting high up on my back porch and closing my eyes, it's truly a beautiful symphony.

But watching? I mean, really?

But I have been converted. It was an accident, for sure. And now I can't stay away from the dang windows.

It's a relief when it gets too dark to see out.

Maybe in a few minutes I can actually pick up my book and read.

But last night all I could think about were birds.

Sorta like I've been possessed by Alfred Hitchcock. That movie was scary, and I watched birds after seeing that, but in a different way. Took me months to get over it. (I think I was eight when I saw the movie,  not a good idea.)

I'll try not to blog about birds next time....but I ain't making no promises.

Husband says a Double Breasted Mattress Thrasher could show up next, and he's real good at knowing his birds.

I can't wait!

Bird (on the) Brain

Boy, we sure have had a lot of rain! In a town where there are three big rivers and about one or two bazillion creeks, that can become a pretty dangerous thing.

Yesterday rivers and creeks were coming out of their banks while it continued to thunder and rain to beat the band.

This morning it was quite overcast (the sun is weakly shining now).

I don't know if this had anything to do with what all has been going on outside my windows, but you have to wonder.

I looked out, and there was one - no two!- Indigo Buntings eating seed in our yard. These birds are small and a deep royal blue color that, as my  husband says, will make you want to throw rocks at the Eastern Blue Bird, because the Bunting is so much bluer. Pretty soon they were joined by the male Cardinal. I was impressed.

Suddenly up in the tree I saw a bird I'd never seen before, and Husband said he thought it was a Rose Breasted Grosbeak. He looked it up, it was. Then another joined it, mates I suppose.

At one point, one Grosbeak, one Indigo Bunting, and one Eastern Blue Bird were sitting on the same limb.

I kid you not.

Suddenly, the Red Bellied Woodpecker joined the group, too.

I tell you, I am still giddy.

How do I prove all this? Did I take pictures, you ask?

Foolish, foolish question.

Of course not.

Oh, I got my camera out. And Lord knows I tried.

But guess whose zoom has decided to quit? Guess whose focus lens is on the death list?

Yep.  That would be my camera.

Of course, Husband's battery is dead. (His camera's, not his personal battery, I don't think he has one).

Daughter's camera was in the drawer and by the time she got it out of the drawer and case and got to a window, the birds had flown.

You may enter the expletive of your choice here:                            .

Thank God for Google.

Indigo Bunting

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Rose Breasted Grosbeak

male Cardinal

Don't forget to look out your windows today. You  might get a rainbow of birds.

That's all for now. Gotta go back to the bay window and see if there's a Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker out there.

I hear there's one born every  minute!