My own birds are voracious as well, but I expect to see ducks at any moment
with all the massive rain fall we've had in the last two days. g I have
everything you guys have, except I have great crested woodpeckers that
scares the bejebus outa the little guys when he comes in for a taste of the
suet. He's humongous! I have yellow sap suckers drilling the pawlonia, and
to my east, the apple trees I enjoy for their blossoms. Then I have what I
think is a type of Oreole. He looks like a darker version of a robin. Black
jacket with white marks on his wings and instead of a soft orange, his is
more an orange red and dark. He's mostly a ground feeder. The mourning doves
are too smart to visit my buffet. I have Pesters and his protégée, Polluxx
outside watching for distracted birds gorging on the bounty I sat out for
them.

I caught a squirrel hanging upside down on the cedar and hardware screen
pulling out black sunflower seeds as fast as he could, but my Daisy pellet
rifle took care of his ass. He has plenty of food in the woods that
surrounds me, I have no pity for him. I'm a dead shot. Because of him or his
kin, I have began finding walnut seedlings popping up in my raised beds, and
if you don't find them before they get up to10 inches, it will take
something more than a tug to get out of the clay based bed. Anyone who has
to battle black walnut seedlings knows their taproot is as deep as the shoot
is tall........I never miss. He now has a hole in his ass.

By the way, I don't shoot birds, not even the crows or ravens or blackbirds.
If I ever see what a grackle is, though, I will change my ways. I have NEVER
seen such abilities to strip a sour cherry tree as these guys have.

We've stopped getting the deluges of rains, Knoxville to the west, and
various other surrounding areas in the mountains have all sorts of major
problems with rushing bodies of water careening down steep hillsides and
mountain sides. I sit on a ridge, but everywhere there is a low point in
the roads I travel, I have to pass thru at least 4-6 inches of water due to
all the pastures and filled ditches that run right alongside the roads,
(there are hardly any standable shoulders on these roads, so if you have to
walk down them, you're screwed......)

I thought I was gonna hafta get out the John-boat to go check the mail
yesterday, but remembered it was Sunday G Which is hilarious since this
place we live on is on top of a hill tucked between other hills and woods
and pastures, so flooding isn't in the equation. But the ground "squishes"
when I walk on it, and for clay, that isn't always a good thing. I read the
water tube yesterday and since Friday night we've gotten over 9 inches of
rain. Had we gotten the cold front earlier, that would have been over 90
inches of snow..................All those little crocuses I have coming up
have now been beaten to a pulp by the rains over the weekend.

Time to fill the feeders with the last of my sunflower seeds. keep warm and
dry!
madgardener up on the soggy ridge, back in fairy holler, overlooking a blue,
cloud wrapped English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 6b


"Noctaire" wrote in message
...
Temperatures are chilly in northern AR today - didn't get above 32 and a
skiff of snow with a bit of sleet adding to the chill. We had the usual
birds (chickadees, cardinals, goldfinches, Carolina wrens, titmice,
etc.)
going through double the normal amount of seeds at the feeder. Yesterday
and
today a robin decided to add seed to its diet.

These birds out here are unreal -- I mean, I live on a MAJOR thoroughfare
here and I'm seeing bunches of 'em out there. With this weather being so
nasty, I'll bet they're having a really rough time finding food.

Seeing a robin eating seed on a platform feeder was a first for me. It's
usual food must have become scarce in the chill so it decided to change
diet. It was so puffed up in the chill that it appeared twice its normal

size.

Our Robins are puffed up big time -- they get bigger every time we see
them.
Chuckle

James