Are you nuts?

When I crawled out of bed this morning (muscles stiff from yesterday's shoveling), the sun was already up and the Bistro was mobbed.  The starlings were acting like bullies, the poor little downy woodpeckers were trying to grab some suet in between starling brawls, all the sparrows were scurrying around under the feeders, the cardinals were all just looking magnificent, the grackles were being their usual nervous selves and flying up into the trees at the slightest hint of motion.  And the blue jays... well, they were being blue jays.  I threw a handful of peanuts out on the patio (which is under about 18 inches (45 cm) of snow) and the blue jays lined up to grab peanuts, screeching at each other if anyone tried to cut in front.  

I cropped this a bit and got rid of a couple of sunflower seeds and then tweaked the exposure a bit.  I shot this intentionally to overexpose by a little so that the snow would read very white.  You can get an idea as to the exposure value by looking at the peanut in the snow - it's very washed out.  However, this is the look I wanted so I'm happy with it.

What started as one Fox Sparrow yesterday has morphed into a half dozen today.  It was so tempting to blip one again since I know they'll disappear as soon as the snow starts melting.  I did put one on Flickr, though, along with a handsome finch and one other sparrow, starting HERE.  I counted 19 species out in the garden today.  

The funniest sight of the day was the starlings all lined up to take baths in the heated birdbaths - never mind that it never got out of the 20's (F) today, well below freezing.  I'm not sure how taking a bath in freezing weather makes any sort of sense, but they were all doing it and with great enthusiasm.  Daft birds. The sparrows, who just wanted to get a drink, were all looking on in horror - I'm sure they're still talking about it.

Hopefully everyone impacted by Stella has managed to dig out by now.  And let's hope that's the last big snow we see this year!

xo
Debbi