A Humming Bird and a Douglas Squirrel Appear on Stage

Two days ago, at mid-winter, the first hummingbird appeared in our forest. As with the appearance of a robin the same week, both birds are really an unusual sight in what is the middle of winter. There are absolutely no catkins or flowers out for the hummingbird, and maybe no insects yet. 

There are more chickadees here now as well. The original four are still showing up to get their suet at the cat cage but yesterday there might have been a couple more but they fly in and out so quickly that unless there are four on the ground or the bars of the cage, it's impossible to keep track of the birds coming and going from the trees around.

On Sunday, I also stood outside and warned off the blue jays so the small birds, especially the nuthatches, could get into the small bird feeder. We ran out of suet on the other feeder and the jays just flocked to the small bird feeder. So I stood outside and every time a jay flew into the larch to go down to the feeder, I moved just close enough to the larch for the jay to fly off. The nuthatches promptly arrived to feed.

I got some idea of just how many 'flying pigs' are sitting in the forest in a semi-circle as one-by-one, they gave up waiting to get down to the feeder and flew off. Maybe nine or ten? Again, with birds in conifers, most keeping themselves well hidden in the pine needles, it's difficult to count if one bird just moved to another tree in the vicinity and only then moved off to further afield.

Yesterday, the Douglas squirrel was also very busy at the small bird feeder, eating a good amount. Since this squirrel is likely out of his stash and very hungry, I did not go out to discourage it feeding.

We got new supplies of suet yesterday and there is now enough for jays, nuthatches, chickadees, the flicker, and the Douglas squirrel. Large areas under the conifers are now completely clear of snow and we had rain again last night instead of snow, so all the critters have access to pinecones, seeds, and any insects that might be overwintering in them. I also am going to start putting out the sunflower seeds around the larch and ponderosa because the Douglas is out. No doubt the blue jays will get most of those.

So it goes.