This is what greeted me from outside my office window early this morning: the female white-tail deer and her two young charges that use our yard and (soon-to-be-our) woods as a thoroughfare. Our friend Ben gave us a persimmon-flavored deer lick as a housewarming gift, which is affixed to a pine at the property perimeter. Lucy and Happy woke me early yesterday (ugh), and I spotted a six-point buck licking the lick. Then I had to explain to Josh what “six-point buck” means after he asked, “How did you know it was six points?”
Continuing the “white” theme, after a few weeks of nothing but hordes of red-breasted nuthatches (they’re still here, enjoying their irruptive season), the white-breasted nuthatches screwed up their courage and returned to the feeders. They really enjoy these peanut butter suet nuggets.
More white, this time in the form of a white-throated sparrow, a winter-only visitor to the Piedmont. Friday night’s frost must have pushed a bunch more our way, because the yard and brush were filled with them and their “Oh Sam Peabody” song. So handsome, no? Don’t ignore the sparrows; they’re actually pretty good-looking.
Another winter visitor, the dark-eyed juncos descended en masse with the white-throated sparrows early Saturday. At one point I counted as many as 15 in the front yard. Scatter seed on the ground to attract them; juncos prefer to pick around in the grass for food.
I don’t tend to take many photos of mourning doves, but I should. They really are lovely, especially when puffed up and bogarting the top of the feeder in the morning sun.
Our numbers of American goldfinches have gone back to the usual dozen or so after last weeks flocks of hundreds. I had so many on last week’s Project FeederWatch count that I had to verify that I hadn’t made a typo.
Speaking of Project FeederWatch, here’s my Week 2 count for Saturday and Sunday. Highlights are the return of the blue jays, of all usually common birds, a lone yellow-rumped warbler, and a pair of Eastern bluebirds. The three crows are regular a.m. visitors to the corncobs I scattered in the yard. They put one big foot on the cob to brace it while they pick off kernels. (Numbers indicate the highest number of each species seen at one time, not the total seen over the two days.)
Mourning Dove 15
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
Blue Jay 5
American Crow 3
Carolina Chickadee 2
Tufted Titmouse 3
Red-breasted Nuthatch 4
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Carolina Wren 2
Eastern Bluebird 2
Brown Thrasher 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
Eastern Towhee 2
Song Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 5
Dark-eyed Junco 15
Northern Cardinal 7
American Goldfinch 5 (0 with eye disease)
