Thursday Evening

[nightdog_barks]

The sun never came out today. :-(

But! I got out and went to the store for a few things, including a couple more suet blocks for the birds. The blocks look like this, although the brand my grocery store carries is different and they sure don't cost $2.95 -- the ones I get are 99 cents. You take the suet block out of the plastic tub (easier if you've put it in the freezer overnight), stick it in the wire cage-thing and hang the cage-thing from a branch. I put an old one out yesterday and it attracted a woodpecker (a small one -- a downy or hairy) and a chickadee.

Also saw more white-winged doves today, a House Finch, some little guys that are probably American Goldfinches (they don't turn golden until summer), and some tiny little finch that was sort of a nondescript olive-greenish color. I have no idea what it was.

So, anyway. Hoping to write a little tonight. In the meantime, here's a lovely article from the NY Times on Christmas crèches.

Comments

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Hee -- I think suet blocks became commercially popular when the whole "birding" thing took off (no pun intended) as Something To Do (with all its specialized equipment -- bird books, super-zoom lenses, $2,000 binoculars). It was probably about the same time that Wild Bird Unlimited stores started going up everywhere.

We get lots of woodpeckers -- downies, hairies, red-bellies (whose most distinguishing feature is their red head), ladder-backs, flickers ... here's (http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/birding/woodpeckers_pineywoods/) a nice site, although we don't have all of these birds in our area.

[blackmare-9.livejournal.com]

This discussion, and your icon, reminded me to go find out whether the thing I saw a couple weeks ago could really have been a pileated woodpecker, as I suspected it was. There aren't many things that size that fly in that haphazard, off-rhythm fashion.

Sure enough, we have 'em here in MN, year-round. That fact makes me ridiculously happy.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

... fly in that haphazard, off-rhythm fashion.

Hee. Perfect description of how woodpeckers fly.

This icon is from an old story in the NY Times about the ivory-billed woodpecker. I loved it that it's called the grail bird, so that's what I named the icon.