More snow, and getting colder. The Goldfinches have been very active, at the store, and at home. But, at home they are not all Goldfinches, but Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls. No wonder we have been going through Nyjer like water. Today I went out to fill our Squirrel Buster Plus with Black Oil Sunflower seeds and the whole top of the tree it was hanging in was buzzing with Pine Siskins, Common Redpolls, Goldfinches, and a few House Finches. It was amazing, I don't think I have ever seen that many at one time in our 19+ years of feeding birds. The only bird missing at our feeders this year are the Red-breasted Nuthatches. Our little Downy Woodpecker was back for a meal at the store today. He spent quite a bit of time poking around at the tree bark before he decided to fly over to the Suet Log. It was getting dark, so he didn't spend a long time at the feeder, but it is always exciting to see different birds showing up. All the birds are enjoying the heated bird bath we have at both the store and at home. We are due from some very frigid weather in the week ahead, and many of our customers are quite concerned for their birds. We just tell them to make sure they have feeders full and open water, and their birds will be fine!

Well 2009 has been exciting so far. We have discovered that we have Common Redpolls at home, and at the store we have a Downy Woodpecker back, enjoying our Suet log. I know there are Red-bellied woodpeckers at the back area of our store, and hope to eventually lure them to the front where the feeders are. We are still waiting for a Pileated woodpecker to visit our suet log at home. Our woodpeckers at both locations seem to really enjoy the Roasted Peanut log suet the most.

It is amazing to see all the goldfinches always chowing down at the nyjer feeder almost everytime I look out the window. Just about every customer that walks in the door makes a comment about all the finches on the feeder.

We are expecting very frigid weather in the next few days, so we are paying particular attention to keeping all our feeders full, and fresh water available.

It's January 2, 2009!! Our first bird sighting of 2009 was a male Cardinal. What a way to start off the year. We have had a January melt-down in December this year. With record snowfall in December, it seems unreal that is has all melted away except the huge piles from snowplows. We did get about 4 inches a couple of days ago, but now it is just windy. Our finches at the store don't seem to mind the feeder always at an angle with the blowing wind though. Since we put up the Droll Yankees 36" Finch Flocker we have had so many more Goldfinches than in years past. Our Chickadees have returned since they discovered our other Droll Yankees tube feeder full of Nutra-Saff. They seem to really enjoy that seed. In fact all the birds seem to like it. We have a Kozy-Bird Spa out for them to enjoy, and they seem to have taken to it very quickly.

What a year this has been! Lots of birds. Around Labor day, we started getting reports of Red-Breasted Nuthatches. That is early for our area. They don't usually show up-if they are going to-until around December. We do have them occasionally, but we were getting a lot of reports! Sure enough, about mid-September we noticed them at home. They are the cutest little bird! Very friendly. I had several encounters with them as I was filling feeders. They just did not want to leave so I could put more seeds in the feeders. Well, if the Red-breasted Nuthatches are here, we now need to be on the lookout for the Common Redpoll. They showed up about the first week in December. Another bird that shows up when the Redpolls' and Red-breasted Nuthatches are here is the Pine Siskin. Sure enough we have been getting reports of them too. No wonder we are selling bird seed like crazy. Our daughter lives on the third floor of an apartment building and she got this great picture of the Common Redpoll sitting on her planter box.

Make sure you have plenty of Nyjer (thistle) feeders out and a heated bird bath available when you have an invasion of the winter finches at your house! Yesterday was Christmas-our only day off in a month-and we finally got to see all the birds that have been devouring our seed on a daily basis, and saw just why the heated bird bath is usually fairly dry when we go out to fill feeders. It is always amazing to see them lined up along the edge and drinking and then flying back to the feeders to eat some more.

After a few weeks of severe cold and snow, we are in a February thaw. It has been beautiful, with sunny skies and temps in the 30's to low 40's. What a change from highs in the single digits just a week ago! We had a customer call from Israel a few days ago wanting some hummingbird feeders as quicky as we could get them to them. They had some snow and were worried about their Sunbirds. We checked into the quickest means to get them out and mailed them right away. They received them yesterday and they emailed us some pictures of the birds eating from the feeders. WOW!! I have never seen this type of bird before, they are beautiful.

We are in the middle of one of the worst storms we have had in about 4 years. It is snowing and blowing so hard that the weather people have us under a blizzard warning. It is definitely lake-effect, the sun has peeked in and out quite a few times. Our birds have been ravenous! I feel so bad for them, but they are real troopers. Our poor little squirrels are having a tough time finding food too. They keep checking under the feeders, but it has been snowing and blowing so much that they have to dive down under the snow to find anything. I put out peanuts and seeds on a tray feeder on our deck for them, but the snow has drifted over it and covered it all up. The birds are so happy we have our heated bath out and running. The snow built up around the edges and they were having trouble with that, but once the Cardinals knocked the snow off the finches were right there! It is just bitterly cold out and I worry about all the poor critters and birds that don't have feeders nearby. I know that we have had bird at our feeders at the store the entire day, and that is really unusual. We're due for around 5 inches today and more tonight and tomorrow. I think it's time for SPRING!!

This year we decided not to totally depend on our small pond for open water for our backyard birds. We put our heated birdbath on our deck off our kitchen almost as a test to see which one they preferred. Well, I can tell you that they definitely prefer the heated birdbath. Now that the weather is much more frigid the small trickle of water coming down the pond is not enough to attract them to it, but the steam vapors from the heated birdbath definitely attract the birds to it. We have a daily ritual of putting out peanuts in the shell onto a tray feeder right by the heated birdbath and then we eat breakfast and watch the Blue Jays and Tufted Titmice fly in to retrieve the peanuts! It is so fun to watch it makes it difficult to leave for work especially if there are still some peanuts left! We call this routine "Breakfast with the Blue Jays".
We also put seeds on the tray and occasionally a Cardinal, Goldfinch, Junco, Nuthatch, or House Finch will fly right in after the Jays have flown off with a nut. I sometimes wonder why everyone doesn't have at least one birdfeeder in their yard to watch the antics of their birds!!