Birdwatching

I know that I have written about the birds in previous posts, and I do try not to repeat myself in this blog (which gets harder and harder to do), but I am so crazily in love with watching the birds at my feeders that I just need to give them yet another post.

It's a simple feeder.  Room for birdseed and suet.  Squirrel baffle in place.  No technology involved.  Smaller than a TV screen.  But I watch it like an addict.  Even in this quotidian shot, you can see one of my woodpeckers, a show-off male cardinal, and a few of the usual suspects.

And who are the usual suspects?  Finch, junko, tufted titmouse, black-capped chickadee, cardinal, bluejay, and dove.  And they are legion.  It's a veritable party out there every day.  There is another feeder hanging off the porch railing to the right of this one, but it is not as popular as this main restaurant.

I have not seen my beloved pileated woodpecker yet this season, and I am starting to get worried about him.  He's been around for a couple of years.  It wouldn't surprise me if his fickle nature took him to seedier pastures for his dining pleasure.  But I still miss him.  I look for him every day.


I don't know what it is about watching birds at a feeder that is so compelling.  I would say that this obsession is new to me, but I would be lying.  In the back of my Green Book of Birds of America, I recorded the birdwatching I did when I was nine and ten years old.

And then there were a few decades when I didn't pay attention.

But here I am again, idly standing at the window, watching.  I have all the time in the world, or so it seems.  Watching birds can fool you into thinking that.

Which is why I am in love with them.