This morning our treat at the bird feeders just out the windows was a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.  I don’t want to scare them, so I’ll give you someone else’s photos.  Recently I saw a Dark-Eyed Junco.  Usually the dark hood is charcoal, but this one was dark blue. And we have the usual Titmouses, Nuthatches, Gold Finches, and House Finches (sporting a lot more orange or red this year).  Cardinals and Doves come around picking up spills.  Even the Red Breasted Woodpeckers have figured out how to sit on the short bars that are meant for smaller birds and stick their long beaks into the feeder.

There are two Eastern Bluebirds on a fence post, just now, and some crows wading their way across the yard in the distance.  Almost daily we spot a hawk breezing by.  A couple are living in pines out front.  We’ve yet to tell the kind of hawk.

Half grown gray squirrels aggravate me for scaring the birds away from the feeders.   You know how they work at a puzzle.  Where’s a good Blue Jay to dive bomb him?  Oh, last summer I found them across the road at the edge of the woods.  The year before, during the drought, they came to the house to drink from the birdbaths.

We spotted hummingbirds a week or more ago (I can’t keep track of time), so I need to mix them some sugar water.  We now know to use white sugar, not natural organic, as it can kill them.

I hate to spend money to replace the binoculars that I put on Kubby Kubota’s fender and ran over half way down the lane, but think I need to.  The front porch is warmer now, plus I’ll be spending time in the textile studio and will need them for close views of the birds around the pond.

By the way, cold nights past April 15 are unusual for NW Alabama.  It seems to me that we are seeing early signs of the coming “Long Cold Spell”.  It hasn’t affected gardening for us.  We aren’t planting anything while so busy with house renovation, so fewer plants will die of thirst or neglect.  Tomatoes planted by the previous owner are likely to thrive with no help from us, as they did last year.