This and that!
Yesterday I added 6 new videos to this website – I hope you enjoy them! My main purpose with these videos is for you to be able to see these birds in action – a slice of their lives. You can watch their interactions, their movements. Get acquainted.
Our weather here in Illinois has been unsettled at best. High winds and a whole lot of rain. Thunderstorms. And we are still having night-time temperatures in the 30’s – sometimes with frost warnings. This has thrown off my spring plans. But it looks like the weather may be different starting next week. I plan to open the birdbath cam probably Wednesday, April 16th. The hummingbird and oriole feeders will also be up by that date – you will be able to see both on this camera. The hummingbirds will arrive any day now – a few early birds might even be here. I would have put the feeder up earlier, but we ordered a new feeder and it took longer than I expected for it to be delivered. The Baltimore Orioles should be here by the end of April. The orioles use the feeder off and on every day and also are regular bathers in the birdbath – you should be able to watch all of this.
This coming week we will also fill the small bird bath that is placed near the larger birdbath at the feeders. We will again add pebbles and stones – hope the crows come back for their zen gardening. If any of you missed that last summer, here are two videos: Video 11/24: American Crows Rearranging Rocks and the sequel, Video 12/24: Look Who’s Back! Click on the video titles to view.
We did switch out our large thistle seed feeder for our smaller one. We have fewer American Goldfinches here in our yard in spring and summer. We think they nest in the hundreds of acres of riparian woodlands across the lake from us and simply do not come here to our back yard to forage. These woodlands are perfect habitat for their nesting because they border acres of unmown grasslands filled with the tall prairie flowers whose seeds they love. But they do live here in our yard during the fall and winter months.
You will notice we have not been keeping the log suet feeder filled as regularly as we did all winter. There are two reasons for this. One is we now have a few starlings who devour this suet. The second is that with warmer days, more and more insects are emerging and our woodpeckers – who use this feeder – consume those. We are filling this feeder today and probably one more time and then we will take it down for the year and put a tube of sunflower seeds in its place.
It is a beautiful day here today in central Illinois – I wish you all the same! We plan to be outside this afternoon enjoying all this sunshine.