Bird feeders and prayer flags

A bright spot of color in a brown and green world.

It seems every bird watcher/feeder who lives near or in a forest must go through the battle of squirrel versus bird, and it hasn't been any different at our house. Lately, squirrels and some unidentified other furry creature were winning the battle and cleaning out all but the finch feeder overnight. Bill thinks about things a good while and then pursues his plan.  This one meant putting a ladder up against a tree, attaching a heavy, plastic-coated cable and repeating the same process on another nearby large tree. A pulley was threaded on to the cable and the filled feeder attached, then raised high up in the air.  Worked like a charm and no trees were damaged in the doing. 

Guess who suggested the prayer flags? Me, the artist, of course. A nice, bright spot in a brown and green world.  Bill, always the analytical thinker, inquired as to whether or not birds would be frightened by them. The next morning I sat by the window a long time to find out.  Two titmice could have cared less and flew straight to the tray.  Nuthatches, normally very adventurous acrobats, flew at it, under it and beyond it numerous times, landing on a tree and looking back to inspect the new arrangement. Finally, they landed on the roof of the feeder and did one of their upside down flips on to the tray.

Nearby, a flying bright spot landed on a branch to soak up the sun--a bluebird with a worm in his mouth!  I just love this splendid creature and am hopeful he will become a regular visitor even if he never uses the feeders.  To encourage his presence, we cleaned out all the bird houses and I'll start putting out some fruit for him. I read about how to raise my own mealworms for feeding the bluebirds, but decided the rather slimy, smelly and laborious process was not my thing...even for a bluebird who already has proven he is quite capable of getting his own worms!

At the front of the house, our house not the bird house, my hopes for the phoebe's return has been answered as I watch him flit around outside the kitchen window wondering what happened to the nest he and his mate left on the downspout last year.  I'm sorry, dear phoebe, but we really needed that new guttering and the new downspout is even bigger than the old one. Your sturdier perch awaits you as I await the return of the hummingbirds to provide aerial entertainment for us both from just a few feet away. 

All this just in time for the first day of Spring.