Tag Archives: Backyard Birds

Birds in Winter

It felt like a great accomplishment when I put the last piece in this puzzle.

We haven’t seen a lot of birds yet in our back acres and the ones that stop by don’t stop for long.

We’ve put out seed and then we’ll have another inch of snow fall and it covers the seed.

We are having a bit of a warming trend this week with rain so everything will be slushy and dirty.

Goodbye to February. We hope that March brings good news abroad and at home. We started our church service yesterday pausing and praying for all involved in the war in Ukraine.

Feed the Birds…

Gambel’s Quail?

This looks like the Black Capped Chickadee.

This one I couldn’t find in my bird book with the full black head.

These photos were all taken on Monday February 8th. We had a fine dusting of snow overnight.

Well our HVAC guy came yesterday and it looks like they’ll need to order a new part to correct the problem so we’ll be on emergency heat for a while longer. We want it fixed right so we are happy to wait instead of having a patch up job.

Woodpecker

I believe this is a Northern Flicker that comes to find bugs on this post in our back acres. I wish someday to get a photo of it flying in full wing spread to show it’s beautiful copper underside.

I’m looking forward to the time that our backyard is full of birds again. Soon enough.

Today is Lunar New Year and we are heading to the one Chinese Restaurant in town for Linner. This will be our first time to eat in this restaurant. As I finish up this post Dear is finishing up the painting of the walls in our master bath. Soon I’ll share more before and afters of that space.

Happy weekend everyone.

Saturday, Bath Day

It’s fun to see our birdbath in use from time to time. Sitting in our family room I have a clear view of the birdbath through the sliding glass doors that open to our back acreage. I keep a camera handy with a long lens on it to capture moments like these.

In for a dip and then it was all in.

All washed up and ready for church tomorrow morning.

If I recall correctly, growing up we only had baths once a week on Saturday evening so we were all nice and clean for Sunday church. Every morning we’d have to wash our faces but baths were once a week. Things changed when we hit junior high and high school. When we had kids of our own it was normal to have a bath a day instead of once a week. I wonder sometimes if our little ones are too clean and not able to fight off common infections as when we were little. I remember having the diseases like measles and chicken pox but I don’t remember having lots of colds or the flu and we were never on antibiotics. I do remember having pink eye. I also had some mystery ailment (kidney infection?) that landed me in the hospital when I was in first grade and I was in recovery at home for a long enough time that I had a teacher come to our home for studies. The reason I think it might have been a kidney infection is because I had to drink a lot of water and I wasn’t allowed to have salt. My parents probably didn’t really understand what was wrong with me because they were never really able to tell me when I asked them about my mystery ailment. On the subject of communicable diseases I recall standing in a very long line with my family at the local junior high for polio vaccinations when I was elementary age. We also got smallpox vaccinations in elementary school. That smallpox vaccination was pretty primitive and left an interesting scar. Since we are on this subject of communicable, thankfully I only remember having lice once, in elementary school. Oye! My mother worked very hard to eradicate them. When I was an elementary school teacher there was an outbreak of lice and it made me squirm.

Hope you have a nice last Saturday in June! Happy Canada Day weekend to our friends to the North.

 

For the Birds…

For Mosaic Monday I’m sharing some collages/mosaics of our backyard visitors.

Red-Winged Black Bird

These backyard Thrushes and Flickers have been the most fun to watch.

This next visitor surprised us along with the female eagle that I didn’t get good shots of as they came flying into the trees in our back acreage. We hope they were scouting a spot to build a nest. I’ll have a full post dedicated to the Eagles soon

Joining Angie at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf for Mosaic Monday.

We woke up to frigid temperatures this morning. It got down to -6 before it inched up again. After church it was a balmy 27 degrees. The sun has a lot to do with that. The stars were amazing to see in the night sky and morning before dawn skies. Spectacular. We’ve never lived somewhere outside of the city lights so stars were hard to see but now we get an eyeful! While standing and looking up in the sky that song “In the stars His handiwork I see, on the wind He speaks with majesty, though he ruleth over land and sea, what is that to me” comes to mind. It’s an oldie but a goodie.

Friday’s Fave Five

Some favorites from this week:

Watching the birds in our backyard.

Knowing that they aren’t starving with all the snow.

 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 25:26

Learning from some of my favorite Bible Teachers.

Pausing in the morning and starting the day reading God’s Word and some good devotionals.

Meditating and praying about things I’ve learned and needs that friends and love ones have.

Watching, Knowing, Learning, Pausing and Praying are all the good things that happened and that I’m thankful for this week.

The bonus because it was Valentine’s day yesterday was hearing from my kids and listening to Addy trying to say Happy Valentine’s Day and then enjoying a smoked prime rib dinner at Backyard BBQ and driving home on snow covered roads safely.

It started snowing as we left for the restaurant and is still snowing now so we are in for an interesting trip to Spokane on Friday. I’ll be late visiting this week.

Joining Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five.

Backyard Birds

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26

We are spending a long weekend on the western side of the Cascade mountain range. We drove over the pass on Saturday with mostly clear roads for the 365 miles. We are staying with our oldest son and our dear daughter-in-law. While here we are celebrating her birthday.

On Sunday I traveled north to Canada for our annual Mennonite Girls Can Cook Christmas party/dinner. Dear was supposed to go with me but alas we realized we both forgot to bring our passports with us across the mountains. Oye. I have an enhanced license so I’m able to travel across the Canadian/U.S. border with that. It was a very sad realization that Dear would miss out on this event. I made the 2+ hour drive each way by my lonesome enjoying my new Lauren Daigle CD. Dinner and time with the “girls” was rich and wonderful. Lovella and her beloved created a beautiful setting for us all to enjoy. Everyone contributed to the meal and it was over the top delicious from the Charcuterie board appetizer, Potato Leek soup, plated salad, stuffed pork loin with noodles and gravy, roasted carrots, broccoli salad, fresh rolls and a beautiful layered cake dessert.

While I was in Canada Dear had dinner with our Western Washington Kids (WWK). For Monday we will meet up with dear friends for lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant on this side and be able to hug our favorite waitress! This evening we will gather together with our WWK to celebrate Laura’s birthday. My take away gift from the MGCC party last night was a beautiful home made pie that Judy baked and we’ll enjoy that as Laura’s birthday “cake” after dinner. Photos to follow sometime soon….

Junco

It’s time to jump to the letter J and come up with a post to share at ABC Wednesday.

I’m going with one of the most common birds that come to my feeders, the Junco.

recipe-birds 015 This species shows much geographic variation in color. Typically, male of western population (“Oregon Junco”) has black hood, chestnut mantle, white underparts with buff sides. Eastern male (“Slate-colored Junco”) is dark slate-gray on head, upper breast, flanks, and upperparts, with white lower breast and belly. Both forms have pink bill and dark gray tail with white outer tail feathers conspicuous in flight.

recipe-birds 016Dark-eyed juncos are unique sparrows that nest on or near the ground in forests. In winter, they typically form flocks and often associate with other species.

recipe-birds 012We have had a nice variety of birds come to our feeders. It seems to be different every year except for these Juncos. They are pretty consistent.

recipe-birds 014

Robins in our area do not bother with the feeders. They are content to poke on the ground and lawns. It’s always funny to watch the blue jays try to land on the feeder. They are a little too big to do it gracefully.

What are the common birds in your back yard?