Well, what an odd weekend. We get up Saturday to freezing (literally) temps, seed frozen to the ground and bird baths frozen solid. It took the better part of an hour, and a lot of hot water, to get the yard "ready" for the birds. Then, we got to bed Saturday night with the ground already re-freezing but we wake up and it was 45 degrees! That's Portland for you, I guess.
Here are some photos from Saturday morning.
We left the bird bath drip lines on low for the night, not knowing that they were forecasting freezing temps. So we got up in the morning to frozen waterfalls. Kinda cool!
Frozen grass early in the morning.
Frozen seed in one of our tray feeders.
Frozen plants all over the yard.
This morning, sitting on the patio drinking coffee, we spotted 6 Northern Flickers all in the same tree. It was kind of awesome to see. I have highlighted the 6 birds since it was low light and the photo is kinda grainy.
Here's 3 of the Flickers. They all seemed to be grooming themselves. They were in the tree on and off all day long. We see this tree everyday and we have never seen so many in it.
Here is our "perfect tree". The reason that it is so perfect for us is that it still has about 50 pine cones on it! Nature saw fit to decorate our tree for us! We put some lights on it and a few icicles and that's it. No other decorations needed!
Here's a view of the front of our home. We put more lights and decorations up this year than we have in the past. The sky was so wonderful Saturday night.
We keep the Grinch in the window to ward off any "real" grinches! He has yet to steal our Christmas!
Isn't the sky incredible? This is a shot of a bird house hanging from the side of our home.
We must have taken 40 photos of the sky that night. The sky would change colors every 2 minutes!
Okay, just one more photo of the sky! We'll post bird photos from this weekend in a couple of days. We took too many photos this weekend! Take care and good birding to everyone!
8 comments:
Gorgeous photos! You have to be a talented photographer to make frozen grass look as lovely as yours!
I have been a lurker here for about a week or so but wanted to comment on your pictures. My mouth gaped at the chestnut-backed chicadee. I never even knew there was such a bird.
You get birds in the northwest that we don't get in the northeast so it's interesting to see the differences.
Beautiful sky photos! We are in a deep freeze here in the northeast, but temps in the 40's expected midweek. I am trying to imagine six flickers at once. The most I have ever seen together is three.
I enjoyed the sky last night from work, nice to see you got some photos. It was gorgeous!! Love all your photos you posted.
Stunning skyshots! This crisp and clear weather creates great photo-ops doesn't it?
I echo Kallen's comment about the Chestnut-backed Chickadee.
Congratulations on your 100th Post! How exciting to see 6 Northern Flickers!! I would have loved to have been there to see that! Great photos of the sky and your Christmas tree and lights and the frost, too!
You have posted so many interesting things to comment on. Firstly, I love the first sky shot, such amazing, beautiful colour.
How I would l love to have a winter when freezing is a rarity! However, like you, we are also presently experiencing a wide temperature range from today to tomorrow... -18 degrees C when I woke this morning with +11 forecast for tomorrow afternoon. We presently have snow but perhaps all the rain tomorrow will take it away again (I hope!). I would love to see one red-shafter Flicker, let alone all the ones you had in your tree at once.... what a teriffic sighting.
Yours was such an interesting post, also a Christmas tree already decorated with cones... love it! Thanks for your comment on mine.
ann
Congrats on your 100th post; it was a beauty, too!
About your frozen drip...I hung a finch sock just outside my kitchen window. It's one of those double-sock things with the dome roof that stores extra seed. From the roof, the melting snow has caused some ice-sickles that the birds land on and hang from; waiting for a turn on the bird-covered socks!
It's kinda wild to watch; they also drink the water from the dome's little recessed door on top.
I especially liked the frozen grass photo; great angle! I didn't know it 'hurts' the grass to walk on it when it's frozen...the local golf course has a fit when birders take off across the green on a frosty morning!
(you might remember my owl pics earlier this year...they nested near the first hole)
Those sky pics are incredible!! My birdbath is frozen solid too, the heater I have now just can't keep up. I ordered a newer one, we'll see if it's any better.
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