Bird Talk

First Purple Finch of the Season

A treat for me to see this little male at my front feeder this morning, and when I stepped outside, all kinds of bird songs and chatters from  the trees greeted me.  We are moving into spring in spite of the forecast for five to ten centimeters of snow tomorrow. 
They finished a major bird count for this area and I read the results with a little trepidation.  I don't want to know there are fewer robins, or nuthatches or the numbers of finches are down.  I always fear the worse.  I really want them all to be out there happily pecking, winging and singing and nesting or whatever. 
What I can't bear to think of birds is that there are killers amongst them.  They seem so tiny and fragile.  It is this very fragility, the biological fact of possessing hollow bones, that enables them to achieve their greatest feat-the ability to fly.  No, I don't want to think of any of them as killers. 
I showed you a photo of the two ruffed grouse that have been daily visiting the oldest tree in the back yard.  I love watching them. They are so fattish-looking and heavy, they actually wobble and bend some of the thinner branches they sit on.  They are so homey in appearance too, their colours the colours of old wood, certainly nothing flashy at all.  But it works so well for camoflage which I guess is nature's point. 

Taken through the kitchen window