Another bird alert

I went out this afternoon on an errand that involved my camera. As always, I had to stop in the drive and admire my lovely little flying pigs. Eventually I realized I had a camera and they were about their regular business up there because I stop in that driveway every morning and smile over the birds. "Just the old lady in the car," they probably call from branch to branch. I got 'em with my camera! I may do this again, with the door wide open and both feet firmly on the ground. Craning from behind the steering wheel is not the best shooting position.

There are four bird feeders hanging from the oak tree. This feeder holds a large block of safflower, protected by that overhang. At the time of shooting, a red-headed woodpecker was busy on the other side. The safflower blocks last about six weeks. Last time we put in a cylinder of fruits, nuts and berries those little fiends offed in about a week. I love the little darlings, but I want more for my twenty dollar bill.

This is the finch feeder of Nyjer thistle seed. It is not native, but comes from Ethiopia or thereabout. Also not inexpensive; I hope I am supporting at least one village. This feeder is brilliant. It is a wire mesh tube and a dozen finch can and do frequent it at once without dispute. If there is room to land they do not need to boost another finch off; they just get down to business and eat a lot of thistle seed.

This is the "big" bird feeder. Holds a lot! Ten or twelve cups of the past middle expensive stuff. Big, oily black sunflower seeds, peanuts, lots of goodies. This feeder is also genius. The perch is too high for bigger birds to use the feeding holes. I don't have anything against blue jays, past their meanness; they can hang out with the doves and the squirrels, down below. About the squirrels--if they hang off the perch, or slide down to the bottom grey collar, all the feeder holes close. Nananananah.

This is the "little" bird feeder. It's where we put the big bucks feed. It treats squirrels with the same disdain as the big bird feeder. I hope some engineer is collecting royalties. The empty frame is another holder for molded bells. We've run out of those at present. That's a chickadee on the feeder.

And leaving the feeder. I don't always know what I'm shooting; the "image stabilization" puts a delay between depressing the shutter and taking the shot. Not too fond of that. And the lack of a viewfinder.  I dropped the camera and broke the flash recently. There may be a new camera in my future. It could have a lot more zoom, as well as a view finder.

I also noticed everything half empty at noon, so I put the birds' best friends on the job when they came in from school. They announced the bottom of the big and little bird feeder pails hove into view, but the thistle pail is still half full, gramma.

So, Laura and I made a seed run to the wild flying pigs, unlimited store after supper and before it snows another eight to twelve inches tomorrow. We refilled the pails for the little darlings, and put bells in the empty frames.