Getting to know them.

After feeding the birds on our property for two years now, I am beginning to see the pattern of their day. Mornings are always a little frantic before the feeders are filled so that is the best time to hopefully get a chickadee or two to forget their fear and come that much closer for a tasty seed. I'm now finding that even as I walk around under the sumacs these little sweeties will sometimes fly right by my shoulder. You can hear the *swoosh* as they flit by. And if I sit at the table under the shady sumacs they will sit above me and watch with great interest. I guess I'm as interesting to them as they are to me.

"So you're telling me that they fly right into your hand and I STILL don't get one for lunch?"

Later in the morning it will be quiet as they rest in the trees. By early afternoon they are out again bathing in the birdbaths and bickering with the nuthatch, blue-jays and chipmunks over the best spot on the favored feeder. 

By dinner-time, all is quiet again under the sumacs.
At five o'clock each evening, the mourning doves arrive for food and water near the old pump.  I watch them from the kitchen window and am always amazed at the accuracy of their timing.
Then after dinner the crows fly in to clean up everything that is left in the feeders and has fallen to the ground below.
Those comical black bandits.

I added a new finch feeder for the fall and the chickadees are loving it. 
And in case you are wondering, Simon is doing fine and jam-packing his pantry with seeds and nuts for the winter ahead.
He often sits right at his front door to say "Howdy!"

The  latest addition to the woodlot; an arbor.

I'm looking forward to planting flowering vines to cover this pretty addition.

I hope you all had a fun long-weekend. 

Here's one of my chickadees.

hugs, Deb