Restoration of Birdliness

I am happy to say that the bird feeders I have been assiduously (and in some cases surreptitiously) placing in the back-patio area since August are finally bearing little feathery fruit (to horrifically mix my analogies in midstream).

The bluejays (AKA noisy pterodactyls) were naturally the first to begin making regular visits, as their beady little eyes can spot peanuts on a plastic lawn chair from orbit. For a long time I thought that would be all we would get, even though this seems to be a very birdful area. Then winter hit.

The first songbird-y kind of creatures were juncos, happily doing their hopping little scratch-dance on the ground under the feeder. (Okay, feeders.) Then within only a day or two arrived a brace of tufted titmouses, with their cute little pointy heads.

Soon a brace of house finches (whose song I linked to above), male and female, began visiting. "Proper robins!" exclaimed TheLimey when I pointed these out, as American robins are big and bulky elephantine things compared to English robins, which do look a lot like house finches.

I've only seen a few sparrows, which means maybe they won't hog the entire feeder contents (blocking the songbirds) in ten minutes flat like at my last residence. I have seen a lot of chickadees in the area, so it seems likely that we should get some soon. Especially since they tend to travel in the company of those tufted titmouses. I can also hear nuthatches, which like suet cakes, in the trees around the house, and some other unidentifiable woodpecker-y sounding bird. I hope it likes suet, too.

The only problem is that in these little condos, of course there are a lot of pet cats who spend a lot of time slinking around our patio. Some are already actively hiding in the greenery under the feeders and stalking my birdies, dammit. Maybe I will get a taller board...though now the ground is frozen.

The only squirrels around here are still quite wild, but then I haven't actively pursued training them yet.