When the going gets Tough

Yes, it was snowing that hard....

Yesterday the birds were so desperate that we often had thirty or forty Brown-headed Cowbirds at the feeder, seventy-five Red-winged Blackbirds, three pairs of Northern Cardinals, and dozens upon dozens of others. It was as if more and more of them kept pouring in all day, as the word got out about the seeds.

I kept filling the feeders all day as the snow piled up and the hordes emptied them. Around noon I went out for the forth time to find a half a dozen Black-capped Chickadees hurriedly diving in while I was there...they are not afraid of me and the other birds are...in hopes of getting at least a couple of seeds. However, the feeder was empty.

I filled my hand with sunflower seeds....within seconds one was perched in my palm grabbing one. That is desperation. I have coaxed them to eat from my hand before, but it has always taken a long, cold wait in stillness, until some bold individual snatched a seed and fled. This one sat on my hand long enough for me to feel his tiny weight and wonder at such trust and such hunger.

I didn't want to tease them when they were so hungry, so I filled the feeder and came back inside. Whenever I went out to shovel out the door so we could still get out of the house, they all rushed in to eat while the other birds fled.

And then it got so bad that even the wilder birds utterly ignored me while I worked. Not a good storm at all.