Every morning that I can, I like to sit outside near my bird feeding station and watch the birds come and go while I drink a cup of coffee. Some mornings the birds straggle in one or two at a time and I don’t see very many. Other mornings, like this morning, they are waiting for me and they all but jump on me while I’m putting the food out. Our weather is warming back up now, and today was really nice, but we’ve had a lot of unusually cold weather lately and it has the birds feeling quite hungry. The smaller birds have been even more affected than the bigger ones. For example, this morning I was met by a large mixed group of tufted titmouse and Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis), all chattering away and scolding me for sleeping past dawn, thus neglecting their needs. They were all still taking turns grabbing their choice of items and flying off to the trees to eat them before returning again and again when the chipping sparrows showed up, too. This little bird was one of the first chickadees to get to the food and was so excited that he was fluttering his little wings while waiting his turn. I stayed out there for over an hour and there were still plenty of small birds coming and going and quite a few more varieties had shown up, too.

Questions or comments?