Siggy's Blurbs: Siggy's Edge of Country …

It took another week for a woodpecker to find the new suet cage I filled and placed outside our bathroom window. Our neighbor gave us two wrought iron plant hangers and I stuck one in the ground now visible from the window by looking down. The bathroom is on the second floor. Today she noticed a woodpecker was feeding on the suet. I now have two suet cages which were early Christmas presents. The other one has been up for months. When I realized one suet cake can last for months, I was not hesitant to put up another. It was the squirrels who were eating most of the suet. Now they can’t do that so easily.

Tags: arrival of first woodpecker, bird feeding, bird-watching, birds, Christmas presents, God, my new suet cage, squirrels, suet cages, woodpecker
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The hummingbirds that come to my feeder never fail to amaze me.  There is a steady stream of them.  The other day I actually saw two feeding at the same time.  There is such diversity in nature.  Take birds for example.  There are all sizes and all are colored differently.  Woodpeckers and nuthatches hug the trunk of our large pine tree and seldom can be seen on the ground.  The cardinals feed very warily on the ground and come in pairs.  And occasionally there is a surprise like an indigo bunting or some other bird I usually don’t see.  I keep a bird journal and note unusual visitors.  All I do is make sure the feeders are always filled and from my large living room window watch the parade of birds come and go all day.

Tags: bird feeder, bird journal, bird-watching, birds, cardinal, diversity in nature, God, hummingbird, indigo bunting, large window, nuthatches, pine tree, watch the birds come and go, woodpecker
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We love the large pine tree outside our living room window, which is the center of attention.  I placed a suet cage right next to its trunk.  There are a steady stream of woodpeckers mostly downy who feed on the suet.  The squirrels also come.

The downy woodpeckers travel up and down its trunk seemingly at attention.  Only one bird is allowed to feed on the suet at one time.  The others make sure of that.  Sometimes there is as much as two or three downy woodpeckers on the trunk of the tree at one time.

Occasionally a red bellied woodpecker makes its entrance.  The sight of it makes me gasp.  It is a bigger woodpecker with an one inch red stripe that goes from the back of the top of its head to its nape of its neck (at least the male looks that way).  I had never seen one before and now they are regular visitors.

The white breasted nuthatch also likes the suet as well as the Carolina wrens who I have fallen in love with.  I did not know wrens could get that big.  Occasionally a cardinal will alight on one of its branches briefly.

We get occasional visits by the brown creeper who has a long curved beak and is a small brown colored bird who appropriately creeps up and down the pine’s trunk.  And these are only the birds we remember seeing.

This year a large branch was brought down by an ice storm which became our Christmas tree when I cut off part of it.  We used the rest of it for our tree.  It was one of the most beautiful trees we ever had lit up by several hundred multicolored lights.  Both of us love this tree and consider it to be our friend.

Tags: bird feeding, bird-watching, birds, brown creeper bird, cardinal, Carolina wren, center of attention, Christmas lights, Christmas tree, downy woodpecker, ice storm, living room window, nature, red bellied woodpecker, squirrels, suet, tree trunk, white pine tree, white-breasted nuthatch, winter, woodpecker
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There is something comforting about a snowstorm and knowing there is no where else to go and all you can do is enjoy the snowflakes and your house and pets and your wife.

It just started an half an hour ago.  The snow flakes are tiny so I know I am in for it.  I can’t change the weather.  I just did a quick shopping trip not that I was going to run out of anything but I was low on a few supplies.

Tomorrow I will sprinkle some birdseed on the snow.  I already filled the suet.  The woodpeckers and nuthatch will greet me tomorrow.  My sunflowers feeder is still relatively full and I will get a steady stream of titmouse and black capped chickadees.

If the worst possibly scenario presents itself and we lose power, I have plenty of coal.  We will ride out the storm and enjoy all our bird visitors who come to our feeders and our four dogs will frolic in the snow.  Is there any thing better than that?

Tags: bird seed, bird-feeders, bird-watching, birds, black capped chickadee, coal, dogs, feed the birds, lose power, nuthatch, pets, shopping trip, snow, snowflakes, snowstorm, suet, sunflower seed, titmouse, weather, winter, woodpecker, your wife
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I live in paradise.  My house is on the edge of the country.  There is a farm a quarter of a mile away.  Within a mile a family has chickens, goats, and horses.  I love seeing the baby goats when they are so tiny.

The view from my large living room window is another portal into paradise.  I watch a steady stream of birds come into my view.  Birds I have never seen anywhere appear at my feeders like the magnificent red bellied woodpecker.  About once a year I see the exotic fifteen-inch red crested piliated woodpecker although it is far more likely I hear its wild cackle first.

We even had a brush or two from the local black bear who now stays away.  Our four dogs who now are enclosed by a large wooden picket fence now frighten him away.

There is so much beauty here and sometimes I do not see it.  I forget I grew up in the city–a large town.  I can see cottontails play outside from my kitchen window.  My two friends, a couple I have know for years, are going to visit us next week from NYC.  To them this is wild country. I now have to view the land from their standpoint, change my perspective.  It is too easy to become blind to your surroundings.  Somehow I need to lift the veil that has grown in front of me and again see the beauty around me.

I had fallen in love with Central Pa.  I knew things had changed when once I was coming back from NJ (where I had lived for the past two decades) and I thought, “I am coming home”.  It is paradise here and I have to remind myself of that fact.  Every time I drive up the Juanita Valley, my breath is taken away by its magnificent view of the River and its surrounding mountains.  Even closer to home, when I drive into town from the back way and peer down into the Susquehanna River Valley, I can easily imagine I am viewing the fjords of Norway.  The universe is in my own backyard.  All I have to do is open my eyes.  It’s here.  I do not have to travel to Maine, Alaska or Hawaii.  It is all here.  Paradise.

Tags: baby goats, beauty, bird-feeders, bird-watching, birds, black bear, chickens, cottontails, country, country-life, dogs, edge of country, farm, fjords of Norway, four dogs, goats, horses, Juniata Valley, mountain, NJ, NYC, PA, paradise, pets, piliated woodpecker, red bellied woodpecker, river, see the beauty around me, Susquehanna River, universe in my own backyard, valley, woodpecker
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I make sure my two large bird house totems face outward, one on each side of my front door.  I want the birds in my neighborhood to feel welcome.  There are a multitude of birds that come to our five feeders, which I keep well supplied with anything from sunflower seed to thistle to suet and when the warm weather arrives I put out nectar I make especially for the hummingbirds.  That does not even include the birdseed I scatter on the ground for the birds who prefer to feed there.

Last year there were three birds nesting in our vicinity.  An eastern phoebe built a nest above the right front door light although there might have been too much traffic there for her to be successful in raising her young.  A nest was built there two years in a row.

A scarlet tanager raised a family in a bird box stationed at a large white pine a foot higher feet than my head less than an hundred feet away from our entrance although I never spotted the brightly colored male.  I had never seen one before.

A catbird made a nest in the thicket of one gigantic bush in the corner of our yard.  One of our cats found the nest and flushed the young catbird out of the bush and we shooed the cat away immediately.  The frightened baby bird hopped into the open garage chirping in fright.  My son who happened to be at my house first had to move a table and a filing cabinet out of the garage to reach the scared little bird who had hopped deep into the cluttered garage.  He trapped the baby bird carefully scooped up into a little box without touching it and safely released it back into the overgrown bush where its nest lay.

I want all the birds in our neighborhood to know they are welcome to visit our premises and raise their young.  Every day I watch them come to and fro our feeders.  Soon I will put out nectar for our hummingbird feeders and watch the miniature “helicopters” come back and forth and jostle for position at their feeders.  We will have one feeder at the window just so we can watch them closeup.

There is such a variety of birds that come to our feeders.  The magnificent ten inch long red bellied woodpecker with its gorgeously marked red head occasionally feeds on our suet feeder (which I have placed right next to the trunk of the large white pine tree) and there is his companion–the smaller downy woodpecker which stands at attention as it climbs up and down the trunk of the same tree also feeding on the suet.  Then there is the diminutive brown creeper who is aptly named who also feeds on the suet and my favorite–the fearless chickadee whose antics I always love watching.

This is, of course, an incomplete list.  I want them all to feel welcome and the birds continue to come here in a constant stream.  I joyously greet them each morning and watch them all day and never know when an odd bird makes its appearance like the indigo buntings that seem to come through here once or twice a year in flocks.  I never know for sure what I will see outside my window.  I want the birds to always feel welcome.

Tags: baby bird, bird house totems, bird migration, bird nest, bird-feeders, bird-watching, birds, birds are welcome, birdseed, brown creeper, catbird, cats, chickadee, downy woodpecker, eastern phoebe, hummingbird feeders, hummingbirds, indigo bunting, my son, nectar, pets, red bellied woodpecker, scarlet tanager, suet, sunflower seed, thistle, white pine tree, woodpecker
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