Start the day bird watching

Birds are such adaptable creatures or maybe a better word is persistent and that is just one of many reasons that birdwatching is so interesting. The last two mornings, for example, I started the day with the unpleasant sight of my birdfeeder toppled over and lying on the ground! I’m not sure who took it worse to see my feeders sprawled all over the yard and in disarray, but I suspect it was me, not the birds. Even with the feeders spilled and lying on the ground, the birds just kept working the feeders, business as usual. Only when I took the feeders into the house to do some repair, did the birds seem to mind. Then, even as I screwed the support pole back into the soft, thawing ground, the birds tried to land on the pole. I could have reached out and grabbed them, they were so close and, to rub salt in my wound, the Chickadees even scolded me, practically in my face. How rude!

The problem keeping my feeder upright has been a combination of the thawing ground, here in Wisconsin, and my inability to screw the darn pole deep enough into the soil to do the job. So, like any good wife, I called in my husband for help and help he did. Bill pounded a long metal stake deep into the ground next to the support pole and I wired the poles, together. (See pic) That should make everyone happy, especially me.

They say that you sometimes don’t know what you have till it’s gone and in this case, it proved so true. I have been so accustomed to watching the action at my feeders as a way to start each day on a positive and pleasant note, that I nearly choked to find them lying on the ground. Today, with the feeders back in action, I am going to spend some extra time birdwatching at my bird feeders, birding binoculars in hand and spotting scope and digital camera at the ready for some digiscoping. Everything else will just have to wait.