Chickadees

Grocery shopping this morning. After lunch I decided to start cleaning the truck. The front console has been wiped down. Then I took it over to the car wash to vacuum the floor. Paid my money, the vacuum came on but there was no suction. I called them to let them know and I met with a worker later this afternoon, he gave me some tokens to replace the money I lost. I moved to another bay, and that machine worked. A year's worth of dirt, debris and gravel have been removed from the truck.

After cleaning the truck, I decided to go and check some of the trails at Shubie, it's been 2 months since I was there. The groomed trails are mostly ice free now, but they are in the off leash area for dogs. I did a short loop on one of them. The trails that I prefer, where dogs have to be on leash, are not plowed during the winter, and they are in the woods, so there is still ice on most of them. One of the trails that I like was partially accessible, so I walked along there too. That's where I found some chickadees, squirrels and blue jays.

For the past 10 days there have been very few birds around my yard. I'm not sure where they were, even the starlings had disappeared. Yesterday afternoon the chickadees and the goldfinches came back. Today the starlings descended, at least 25 of them, if not more. The blue jays were around, competing with the starlings for the feeder. The northern flicker was here this morning and the downy woodpeckers were here this afternoon. The cardinals were chasing each other around too. A red tailed hawk landed in a tree in the ravine, the crows were after him.

Later this afternoon my neighbor across the ravine messaged me, wondering if the hawk was in my yard, she said the crows were fussing over something. So he may have been in the area all afternoon.