My bird population exploded yesterday. Back-to-back weather fronts moved through the day before—one in the morning and one in the afternoon—and each brought a few inches of snow. I’m guessing they may have brought in a few new flocks of birds as well. Perhaps last week’s frigid temperatures drove some of them further south in search of better food sources.
Unfortuantely, all that activity alerted my nemeses, the starlings. After I reconfigured my feeders a few weeks ago they temporarily disappeared. I assumed they were off destroying other people’s birdseed budgets. Thankfully I was able to shoo them away. They like to sit in the tops of the trees and come down one at a time to test the conditions. If one or two feel comfortable they alert the rest of the flock and you can suddenly find 30 of them trying to cram onto one feeder at the same time. When that happens I go outside and clap my hands very loudly and the entire flock will usually fly away. They may stay away for a few minutes, a few hours or for the rest of the day. I was in the clapping zone yesterday because they didn’t return.
The most exciting birds that visited my backyard were the cardinals. At one point there were thirteen of them—mostly males. Just when I thought I’d counted them all, another bright-red head would pop out of the arborvitaes.
The finches disappeared during the cold snap, but there were about 30 of them congregating around the nyger feeders. And I usually see only one nuthatch or woodpecker at a time but suddenly there were two or three of each kind hanging from the peanut feeders.
Mourning Doves have been scarce this winter, but not yesterday:
I didn’t get a thing done yesterday, but I sure did enjoy my bird bonanza.