On Wednesday I went for a walk with a winter vest on and no mittens, hat or scarf. The temperature was 53 degrees which is just wacky for Wisconsin in January. Up until that point we had received 4.4 inches of snow for the winter season—most of it coming in two events, and one of them way back at the beginning of November.
By last evening it was an entirely different world. The temperature had plunged to 16 degrees with a stiff north wind. Snow fell all day long and totaled more than 5 inches, and it was still coming down as the sun set.
When the flakes started flying early yesterday morning, the squirrels in my backyard became frantic. They’ve obviously been spoiled by our warm, “snowless” winter, and were quickly coming to the realization that food would soon be much more difficult to find. Two of the beasts were chasing each other all over the backyard in a dispute over who owned the territory under the bird feeders. Another was clinging onto a nearby shrub in an attempt to jump onto a feeder, and a fourth decided to hoist himself up the bird feeder pole.
The birds were fighting too. I photographed two juncos in a mid-air tussle over feeder space:
In the afternoon I tossed some pieces of overripe bananas outside to see if I would get any takers. The squirrels turned up their little noses (I can relate, I don’t like bananas either), but the crows went crazy for them. One of the birds packed two large pieces in his beak and then flew a few feet away where he attempted to bury them for later. Two other crows were watching him, however, and soon there was another backyard scuffle:
Hopefully everyone got a good night’s sleep, and today will be a little more mellow in my backyard.