Birds of Spring

We always enjoy the birds from our breakfast table and Rod is still keen on keeping them fed, but we didn't take as many pictures as usual.

April 14, 2022

One abundant species we had this spring were the goldfinches along with their companion pine warblers. Rod had started filling one feeder with what was called "hot meats", hulled sunflower seed with pepper so strong it would make you sneeze. The goldfinches loved it.

Sometimes you would have peaceful single birds, but at other times we had groups that were as squably as our year-round house finches.

The downy woodpecker is one of our most frequent visitors. This one is quite tranquil, and is sitting about a foot away from this calm pair of goldfinches on the suet feeder. We had a large group of goldfinches which kept this seed feeder busy. The group left suddenly on about April 24, although we still see one pair of them as late as mid June.

To me, this was the most unusual sight we had of the goldfinches. By my count, there are 22 goldfinches on the ground around the sunflower seed hulls beneath our back yard seed feeder.

We have had several cardinals this spring who have been regular visitors to our back yard. We have really enjoyed their playfulness. April 20.