Very Cold December Day in Our Back Yard
December 13, 2009: Whew -- the wind chill today is -14 degrees, and the snow is falling heavily. We always complain about the weather, but it gives us something to talk about! So no "Big Out" today or even a "Little Out."
It'a a day to feed the birds. We have hanging feeders under the deck for black oil sunflower and thistle seed. Then we spread seeds on the ground for birds who prefer to feed on the ground -- juncos and wild turkeys in our yard. The area is nicely sheltered from the wind and the snow by the deck, and the birds are using our new hawthorne tree as a perching area on their way to the feeders.
American Goldfinches Chow Down
We're registered with Project FeederWatch through the bird center at Cornell University. From November to April, folks all over the US and Canada gather data from their bird feeders and send it off to Cornell. These citizen scientists contribute invaluable data on birds in this program -- migration patterns, diseases, effects of weather, bird ranges. And it's a ton of fun! Visit www.feederwatch.org for all the details.
American Goldfinch in Winter Coat
I'm a member of the Ornithological Lab at Cornell www.birds.cornell.edu and receive beautiful and informative publications such as Living Bird as well as periodic e-mail updates on bird status around the country. I took their course on bird biology -- just the best there is!
So remember the wildlife on these bitterly cold days, and do your part to help them out.
Frost Coats the Pagoda and Hawthorne
Louise with photos by Brian. Text and photos copyright GoinMobyle, LLC 2009