Tag Archives: after the blizzard

Blizzards make for hungry birds!

Posted on by

Today the sun is shining and the temperature is climbing to at least freezing. The howling winds and stinging snow are now just memories. What we do have is lots of snow to move around and lots of very hungry birds.

Although I had seed and suet out all through the storm the wind was so tough not many birds braved it. I threw seed out the back door and into areas where the wind wasn’t quite so fierce and we got some takers.

We got a lot of snow and had a lot of drifting…the day after the storm is when the feeding frenzy began and lasted pretty much through the day.

024

My feeders are by my garden which has a chicken wire fence so the bird is not in a cage, just behind the wire…
006 I don’t remember seeing such hungry birds. I had dozens of birds everywhere I looked, eating, eating, eating!009I seem to have at least a dozen juncos that are calling my yard home this winter and I always think of them as the true snow birds…
 030 Mr. Cardinal and all his cardinal friends were very hungry and at one point I had over 20 in and around the feeders.039

 

 

I was most excited to see that the little orange crowned warbler survived the storm! It showed up about midday yesterday….013

The resident Carolina wren also survived and was very territorial around the suet feeder.018

 

Blue jays arrived in a feisty little group to take over the ground feeding at one point.002This morning the sun shone clear and bright and Mrs. Cardinal posed as if to say, “All is right in the world today!”
027Things are slowly returning to normal around here and the birds feeding today are hungry as usual but not frantic. How did you make out in the blizzard? Any unusual birds to report?

 

A day in Chatham

Posted on by

Saturday was a great day for getting out and about so we headed to Chatham to take a look at the beaches there. We knew the big blizzard had done a lot of damage and opened a new break on South Beach so we went to see what we could see. We were not alone. Parking lots were jammed and crowds of people were looking through binoculars, taking pictures and videos and walking out onto the beaches to see the breaks up close.

Our first stop was at Pleasant Bay, just because it was so pretty and sparkly.

The wind and water of the last few weeks left a trail of horseshoe crab molts all along the edge of the road and in the bushes…

At the fish pier you could see the few remaining cottages on North Beach in the distance

The fish market is all closed up, waiting for warmer days…

Lighthouse Beach parking lot was jammed and there were maybe several hundred people milling about…the views were spectacular, though sobering for those of us who know this area…this shot is looking back toward the harbor.

This view is looking down South Beach. Note the people walking but also the large pools of water. The break is not too far beyond the scope of this photo but I couldn’t capture it with my little camera from where we were….

and another view

Starkly beautiful, sad, sobering and thought provoking all at the same time….