Wow. Spring storms are the best for watching a strange list of birds at your feeders... Here on April 18th, we now have at least 6" of new snow (since noon, when it changed from slush to sleet, and then to snow; it's now just after 6:00). The migrants have hit The Wall: They can't go any farther north and still find food... Also, a few crocus are blooming under the snow in the garden that is closest to south side of house.
I feed black oil sunflower, a mix of nyger and sunflower hearts, suet, peanuts, and the newest: freeze-dried mealworms (they have gone through about $10 in the last 3-4 days...) Today, a small, thin dead red oak tree that has been a hole-nesting site for 25 yrs fell under the weight of the slush/sleet/snow and broke my hanging feeder's wire, so after dark I will go out and fix that, plus fill all these feeders so breakfast can commence in the a.m. The usual all-yr round species: Downy W Hairy W Red-bellied W Pileated W Chickadee WB Nuthatch RB Nuthatch Blue Jay Cardinal Goldfinch Cooper's Hawk (has a tendency to chase smaller birds into the windows) Crow (hanging around suet feeder) Some of the Winter species are still here: Junco Tree Sparrow Redpolls (a few of the 100 or so are still here) Plus some new Spring species: Brown Creeper Bluebirds, 5-6 Hermit Thrush, 3 (new an hour ago; eating worms and suet) Robins (in area, not on feeders) Fox Sparrow, 3-4 Song Sparrow, 1 (new today) Purple Finch (been enjoying his sweet warbles all week) It's a 20-species yard-birding day! I'm sure that when I go outside, I could hear the Barred and GH Owls, the Red-shouldered Hawks who are already working on their nest, and the Ravens and Sandhill Cranes at Carlos Avery, to make it a 25-species day. I hope my stop-over will help them all get where they need to go... Holly Peirson Columbus, SE Anoka Co. ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
