23 March 2023 (rain)

female rain

nuthatches courting

on a phone pole

1 December 2022 (morning exercises)

morning exercises

the nuthatch upside-down

on the suet

17 November 2022 (skim ice)

skim ice . . .

a nuthatch tapping

at the suet

17 October 2022 (the usual)

the usual

back and forth of the nuthatch

fluorescent leaves

13 April 2022 (rising sap)

rising sap

a pair of nuthatches

spirals the maple

January 27: Nuthatch

head down

nuthatch scrolling birch bark

fine print

January 21: Cold

teeth-chattering cold

staccato of the nuthatch

pecking suet

November 11: Bare trees

fallen leaves

revealing what stays behind

birds of winter

September 24: Island sunrise

Spruce tops become torches

lit by rising sun,

nuthatches the alarm.

Posted with Blogsy

April 25: Home

Pair of nuthatches
checking out the birdhouse
while I fix the back door.

December 27: Riders on the storm

A nor'easter sent snow and freezing rain gusting around my office today. I live too close to work for the weather to be an excuse not to show up, and we didn't lose power, so I put in a full day there. I was, however, pleasantly distracted for much of that time by the birds flocking my tiny window feeders. The regulars--chickadees and titmice--showed up, of course, and what I think is a solitary White-breasted Nuthatch. And then some finches I hadn't seen in a while made an unexpected appearance: goldfinches, their yellow throats looking positively sunny against the snow, Pine Siskins, and at least three redpolls--a boreal visitor I've only had at my feeders a couple times before. The finches chattered away as they chowed down; I could hear them through the window despite the roar of the wind.

Redpolls peck seed from snow.
I catch myself thinking
of raspberries.

Redpoll visitor from last year (window too splattered with snow to get a photograph today!)