Squirrels and finches

crocus: should send Steve out with his superior camera but they are pretty even slightly out of focus

more croci

dwarf iris. Will be much more impressive when they all are in bloom. This is a plant I could not have back at the Money Pit because of squirrels. One day, I had planted almost 100 bulbs. By the end of the week, all were dug up

Now we are living in a large meadow (or 2 soccer fields as Josh sees it) instead of being surrounded by huge trees. Huge trees cause problems: lots of leaves, they fall down, roots invade sewer pipes and foundations, and they house squirrels. I read somewhere that only one variety of squirrels would populate a given ecosystem at a time. Not true as we had the enormous fox squirrels and the much tinier but very aggressive red squirrels. We did not have the gray squirrels ( of which the black variant is slowly taking over). Some of our squirrels were impressively obese even in the spring in part because they would dig up my bulbs as fast as I could plant them and squirrel them away. They were fearless and occasionally would scamper right over my feet as I sat on the patio. They also would wreak havoc on any bird feeder I tried. So I was left with just the hummingbird feeders (trying to keep out ants and wasps from them though finally I have fixes for that) and a finch feeder whose openings are too small for the squirrel. Alas, I attracted zero finches and the feeder was just as full as it was when I had set it up.

Yesterday it was finally warm enough to insert some shepherd hooks, at least into a raised bed (still ice about 6 inches down in the rest of the yard). Around noon, I set up my finch feeder. Around 5:30, after an afternoon with Shanna and her kids, I noticed 3 birds on it already: a female gold finch, a male purple finch and a chickadee of indeterminate sex. Happy days! Purple finches, btw, are not purple but red. Must have been named by a color blind orthnologist. What I really want to attract are indigo buntings which in the sun are intensely blue and purple finches (on cloudy days, they appear black). I have seen them in the sun only once (and many other times on cloudy days). That will make me happy. For X-mas, I received two different hand decorated finch houses (from 2 different Moms) that have been decorating my fireplace. They will go out today. And maybe I will buy a large feeder for the larger songbirds and hope the squirrels won't make the long trek to find it.

What is the call of the indigo bunting? Po-ta-to chip.

What is the call of the cardinal? ( I did have two pairs of them at the MP) Birdie..birdie..birdie. I do love cardinals but I think they like trees. The big feeder should bring them here.

It will be warm and dry on Easter. Yay! This means I can have my Easter Egg hunt for the grandbabies outside.