The Birds of Winter

Like a lot of places, it’s cold here. And not just the normal winter cold. This is cold on steroids. If the weather forecast is to be believed, we have one more day of this and then a small break before two more super cold days and then things start to get back to more normal winter. Still cold but not ridiculous cold.

Whenever it gets this cold, the activity around the bird feeders kicks up several notches. I’ve read somewhere that they need to eat crazy amounts of food to generate energy and warmth to survive extreme cold spells like this. I do feel sorry for them having to brave the cold but then you can’t bring them all indoors. 

We still have a significant number of bluebirds who are probably regretting the decision to stay in the area. With normal winter cold, they go through two scoops of the meal worms we feed them.  The last couple of days, it has been 4-5 scoops. And, they need water as well so we’ve had to fill up the bird bath more often. (Good thing it has a heater or else it would be an ice skating rink)

The other feeders are seeing increased activity as well so it means many short trips outdoors for me to keep them all filled. No frostbite yet but we keep the food outdoors in small metal trash cans and touching them is no fun right now. The feeders are also mostly metal as well. Have not decided to duplicate A Christmas Story and put my tongue on anything metal though.

Where the birds go into hyper active mode, the mammals seem to take it easy. The raccoons were out in the days before it got cold but they’ve been hiding ever since. The squirrels are still around but not in the numbers we typically see. The one who buried nuts in our flower pots is now realizing the error of his ways as the dirt in those things is frozen solid.

We had three deer (mom and two yearlings) sleeping in the woods behind our house on Friday night since there was snow in the forecast. They spent a lot of Saturday just lying on the ground and really only moved when I made too much noise trying to get a feeder filled. The good news for them is that there is just a dusting a snow so there is still plenty of stuff for them to eat.

Our cat loves the increased bird activity though. There is one spot in the house where the birds come right up to the window at ground level and he makes like he’s stalking them. I’m sure he took down a few when he was living outdoors but now they are just entertainment. I think he’s happy to have a warm home right now – I’d hate to think about him outside in weather like this.

With luck, this will be the only really cold blast of the season. At least today is sunny and, even though the sun doesn’t provide any warmth, it is easier to take cold days when there is sun. Now I need to go check on the feeders.