More chickadees

There are more chickadees visiting the feeder now. Perhaps this is a sign of the coming of fall. They have not been too common over the summer. During the winter time they are sometimes one of the commonest visitors.

There are still hordes of house sparrows from time to time, and also pine siskins are still plentiful. There are also a few starlings. One starling often visits along with the sparrows. Unlike the hummingbirds, the siskins, sparrows, and starlings seem to be able to co-exist while feeding.

Hummingbirds are quite plentiful. Once we start to have some frost at night they will leave. It is apparently a good idea to take the feeder down before it gets very cold since if nectar is available the hummingbirds will stay too late.

Strange fuzzy bird!

This is a blurry photo of a squirrel on the feeder. It also shows the duct tape that is now holding the feeder together. Perhaps I will invest in a new feeder before winter.

We drove down to Napinka in the southwest corner of the province yesterday. There were several very large flocks of red-wing blackbirds along the way. They may be gathering already to go south. It was cold last night but I do not think there was frost yet. There are plenty of hummingbirds still around. They are so active that I had to replace the nectar after just a few days.

My regular supplies of sunflower seeds still has none so I had to buy at a hardware store where they are more expensive. The house sparrows are the worst for simply emptying the feeder contents onto the ground.

Hummingbirds becoming more common..

There are more hummingbirds now, enough that there are fights fairly often. The most common birds at the feeder these days though are the house sparrows. There still seem to be some young ones begging for food. Pine siskins are also plentiful. But there are also a few chickadees now and also some red breasted nuthatches.

We drove to Winnipeg and back yesterday. I did not see any new birds unless some of the ducks on the sloughs were ones I have not seen before. I was not close enough to identify any of them. We did see a mourning dove. Of course there are plenty of red-winged blackbirds but I did not see a single yellow headed blackbird.

Hummingbirds are back...

The liquid in my humming bird feeder had become so old that I changed it. Now this morning and yesterday I was rewarded in that several hummingbirds have visited. They are usually plentiful in late spring and late summer before leaving. This morning there were several even two at a time. They are very territorial birds and will not usually feed peacefully together. When one finishes feeding it often sits in a nearby branch ready to chase away any competitor who might want to feed!

Pine Siskins are plentiful

While there are no new birds at the feeder lately there are more pine siskins than I have even seen before. They even outnumber house sparrows! I think that some of them may be young as they seem not to be too frightened when I approach. One little fellow boldly pecked at the sunflower seeds when I was only standing a few feet away.
We still have a few chipping sparrows, and there are more chickadees now. The starlings are visiting much less frequently. Of course I am still feeding the crows.
I have cut down on the frequency of refilling the feeder. It is just too expensive to spoil the birds by always making sure the feeder is full! House sparrows especially are wasteful in dumping all the seeds they can onto the ground!

Fuzzy starlings

This is a group of starlings eating sunflower seeds off the ground and drinking out of my old cereal dish. When the bowl developed a cracked we handed it down to the birds as a drinking dish. The starlings insist on washing their feet or taking a bath in it and also manage to pollute it with sunflower seed shells as well. There are oodles of house sparrows visiting the feeder and they dump seeds on the ground. I have run out of seeds even though I bought a sack about a month ago.
My usual supplier is out so I had to pay ten dollars for a lighter large plastic bag the probably will not last more than a couple of weeks. Seems there is inflation in bird seed as well as energy.

A lone black-capped chickadee visits.

During the summer I only see chickadees occasionally. I saw one the other day who darted in to grab a sunflower seed before he was crowded out by house sparrows and starlings. I have never seen so many young starlings. There were about a dozen starlings and close to two dozen house sparrows at the feeder the other morning. There are also a few pine siskins, nuthatches, and even American goldfinches who all manage to scrounge a few seeds.