Everyday Things: Spring Has Sprung

One of the reasons that I like spring so much is because it is the time when nature comes to life. You know spring is in the air when you hear the first birds singing, and the flowers are blooming. In my case they are weeds but the are pretty weeds,

...and our apple tree is blossoming beautifully.

If you have been following my blog you know that our first hummingbird arrived on April 12th and so far I have only seen the one. I will be adding more pictures of him and his friends as they arrive.

Tomorrow it will be 2 weeks since we put up our non hummer bird feeder and it is time for it to be refilled. The main visitor's to the feeder so far has been a pair of House Finches. At least I am pretty sure they are House Finches. Cassin's Finches look a lot like them.

Western Scrub-Jay and a male House Finch on the right

I read that the Western Scrub-Jays like peanut butter so I made a mixture of peanut butter and oatmeal to put out for them. Now I had to figure out how to feed it to them. I couldn't just put the food in a lid and sit it on the ground. The bugs would get to it plus the lid would blow away. So I came up with the idea to nail the lid with the food in it to a stump in the front yard. It had been up a few days but no birds touched it that I know of. Then I read that the Jays like peanuts...whole peanuts still in the shell. I asked Rick to pick me up a bag of unsalted peanuts on his way home last night. So yesterday evening I put a handful of peanuts in the dish with the peanut butter and oatmeal and a couple of peanuts on the fence post. I checked and the peanuts were still there when I went to bed.

I woke up to a beautiful morning. It was a very nice day today. The wind decided to leave us alone for most of the day anyway. I got up and made coffee...Rick was already up and had finished the first pot. As I was waiting for my coffee I remembered the peanuts, and when I went and checked they were all gone. I'm thinking it had to be a squirrel even though we haven't seen any in the yard so far.

Just had to throw that in...hehe :)

I didn't think a bird could take that many peanuts, not in that short of time anyway...and at night.

I put out more peanuts and went to get my coffee. It wasn't long before my peanut snatcher showed up.
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It was a Western Scrub-Jay. He took one peanut after another until all of the peanuts were gone. I would really like to know where he was taking them. When he ran out of peanuts he did eat the peanut butter and oatmeal mixture.

Western Scrub-Jay Pics

Like I said it was a beautiful day so after watching the birds Rick and I decided to go to the local swap meet in Cedar Crest. It's right up the road from our house. It's not a very big swap meet but it is fun to check out and I did find something to buy... "An Identification Guide to Common Backyard Birds"...lol...the book cost me a quarter.

I'm having a lot of fun watching and learning about the different birds that are showing up in our yard, and learning about the different birds that are in our area.

Misc bird photos that I've taken around our house

Western Bluebird