A mini-adventure with nature

Yesterday, before the snowstorm hit, I stopped by a conservation area where they feed the birds over the winter. I had a cup or so of sunflower seeds and another handful of peanuts.

At the edge of the wooded area where all the feeders were, a chickadee literally buzzed my head. So I grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds and held out my palm – right there in the open – and immediately two chickadees were perched on my gloved hand, daintily selecting a morsel with their thin beaks before buzzing away, only to be replaced by others, and then some more. I had up to three birds on my hand, with another perched on my head (I was wearing a hood) or briefly hovering over my hand as they waited for the others to clear some landing space. I couldn't believe how brave they were.

After a few minutes, I briefly closed down “operations” so I actually walk into the shelter of the trees (there was a biting wind from the lake), and then the feeding frenzy was resumed. I quickly lost count of the chickadees. A couple of them (or was it the same one, just at different times?) would try to dominate the area around my hand so the others couldn’t get any more seeds, but I made sure that didn’t last too long. The variations in their chirps and whistles boggles my mind.

There were other birds also clearly visible in the bare trees, but none of them was brazen enough to venture close to me: nuthatches, blue jays, some kind of red-capped sparrow, and gorgeous cardinals (did you know that female cardinals are mostly grey with just a bit of red/peach? I don’t think I’d ever seen one until yesterday! There's an excellent photo of one here.).

People think that I’m a bird-watcher because of the bird rescues that I’ve done this year, but nothing could be further from the truth – I have a terrible time seeing birds when the trees are in leaf, and then if I do see them, I just don’t have any eye for the detail that would help me identify the species. The only reason why I could identify the birds that I did yesterday was that they were either very common and unmistakeable (like the chickadees, blue jays, and cardinals) or I’d seen them dead from building collisions and had time to study them up close (e.g., the nuthatch) in order to identify them for the FLAP database. But in this particular place, in the winter, in a concentrated area where they have basically been trained to have less fear of humans, THIS is my kind of bird-watching! LOL

There were several squirrels dashing around the wooded area as well, but they would not take the peanuts that I offered from my hands. (The chipmunks who definitely would, and in the summer might even climb up your pantleg to do so, were presumably hibernating.) Instead, a couple of these squirrels fastened their beady, melancholy eyes upon me as if to say, I know many people would consider me to be a pest and rodent, but if you could perhaps cast that peanut in my direction, my growling, empty belly would be endlessly grateful. Needless to say, the peanuts were gently scattered for their consumption at a safe distance. And that’s when the blue jay actually showed up, descending with raucous cries from some unknown branch in a blaze of brilliant blue, snatching up one of the peanuts and then immediately darting back up to a high branch for safety.

It was all unforgettably beautiful. I wish I could share the wonder of it with each of you.