Think for yourself / Question everything
For this Artsy Saturday post, I want to show you a cherished picture of some of my feathered friends. Redheaded woodpeckers are certainly a colorful part of that family. I wonder why nature gave them their colors. It probably has something to do with attracting the opposite sex. Even human women seem to go for flashy guys.
It is supposed to get down below zero tonight here in Indiana and I think all my feathered friends know it as they are in a panic mode below the feeder. I wish I could bring them all inside but I know that would be messy and impossible. 🙂
Rose Breasted Grosebeaks have taken over the feeder today. They travel through to I don’t know where about this time of year. I always enjoy seeing them for a few weeks.
I never tire of taking more pictures of the winter cardinals in the old apple tree in our backyard. As always they are gobbling up the sunflower seeds at our feeder after the recent winter storm.
Click on the image to see a larger version…
Just a quick pic that I took recently. The blue clip is to keep the racoons from stealing the suet 🙂
Seeing all the blue jays hoarding the feeder just now got me to thinking about life. It doesn’t take much to get me to thinking these days. 🙂
We feed over half a ton of sunflower seed annually in our backyard feeders. There is a big variety of birds that come and go. Cardinals are one of my favorites probably because of their bright color. I just seem to like bright colors at this time in my life. My “inferno orange” Chevy Sonic is a testimony to that. Anyway, getting back on topic, at least once a day a large number of blue jays show up. When they come they drive all the others currently frequenting the feeder away. They take over the neighborhood. My wife tells me they do it with a lot of noise too.
Now to the “about life” portion of this post. I always like to see connections from one part of life to another and seeing those birds brought to mind the “blue jays of life”. That is those people who move into a neighborhood and proceed to play their music too loud, leave their grass un-mowed, and generally be an annoyance in one form or another to everyone else. There is almost always one of those families in every neighborhood. In my younger years some of my neighbors probably considered me to be one.
To finish off this post I want to tell you that the picture here was taken in February. I was too lazy to drag out my camera this time so I pulled a pic from my archives. So, no we don’t have snow in August in Indiana. 🙂
The Blue Jay and the Red-bellied Woodpecker are not terribly friendly with each other but they do, for the most part coexist with each other at our feeder. If only humanity could accomplish the same thing. Coexisting instead of the constant wars. If only….
I often joke that we must feed half the birds in our county and I wonder who feeds the other half? But kidding aside I do get a lot pleasure over the dreary winter months watching my feathered friends, especially the woodpecker who come for their daily round at the suet cakes.
There must be one-hundred cardinals at our feeder today. I think they sense that more snow is coming. But they are not the only ones here. As you can see the hairy woodpeckers have joined the crew at the suet cakes. The more the merrier….
I have downloaded some larger photos this time. Click on the image to see it in more detail.
The temps went to -14 degrees last night. When that happens our backyard feeder becomes a frenzied state the next morning. The top picture is of the many cardinals and blue jays waiting in the old apple tree for their time at the feeder below. We go through about 80 lbs of seed a week when snow blankets everything.
Let’s use this post to show some pictures of my current homestead. Since we live in the country we have a variety of critters who visit us regularly. We also have plenty of room for flowers (although weeding them is another story). We don’t get out in the gardens much this time of year as it is just so darn hot out there! I wish we could move our homestead to Maine in the summer. That reminds me I need to show some of my Maine pictures too 🙂 .
