I get excited when I find a couple of delicate strands of silk*, but then Mary has to come along and gloat about all the birds she saw just yesterday:
American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Brown-headed Cowbird, Canada Goose, Cedar Waxwing, Chipping Sparrow, Collared Dove, Common Grackle, Common Pheasant, Common Starling, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Great-tailed Grackle, Hairy Woodpecker, Hermit Thrush, House Finch, House Sparrow, Mallard, Mourning Dove, Northern Cardinal, Northern Flicker, Northern House Wren, Purple Finch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Rock Dove, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Song Sparrow, White-breasted Nuthatch, White-throated Sparrow, Wood Duck, Yellow-rumped Warbler.
It’s no fair! She has set up this grand array of birdfeeders to draw in the local species.
Also unfair: stupid vertebrates. It takes a little longer for invertebrates to warm up. Give ’em time, they’ll outnumber the birds soon enough…probably already. They’re just not a bunch of show-offs.
Happy Earth Day!
* I’m also seeing silk in the compost bin, but the compost hasn’t thawed out yet. Soon!
Can you find the bird?
It’s behind the large feeder with the sloped roof. Looks like a chickadee.
Looks like you’ll not be retiring, if only to keep the bird feed flowing!
I was just about to wish everyone a happy (if that;’s the word) Earth Day in the endless thread & now here we are!
There’s an official Earth Day website here :
https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2025/
too. Yup April 22nd is indeed Earth Day.
I had an array of bird feeders and even managed to make them squirrel proof. Then the bear ambled through. Everything wrecked. Bummer.
Curious thing about spiders I remember from my youth (aged 22 or so). I worked in Spain as an aircraft mechanic, on a 707 freighter. When the airplane came back from a trip and taxied up to our spot, we’d immediately start doing a post-flight inspection (make sure nothing important had fallen off). Within what I swear was 15 minutes or so (my memory could be faulty on the time elapsed), I’d start seeing lines of spider webs strung all over the tops of the main gear tires, still warm from landing/braking. This was in the middle of a vast paved ramp area, hundreds of feet from any grass or vegetation.
So there must have been spiders that were stowing away on the airplane, in the main gear wheel well? How would they survive at the altitudes we flew (often 42,000 feet) and the freezing cold? Perhaps the temperature wouldn’t soak to such a low level in the landing gear wheel well (humans have somehow survived this stowing away on aircraft) but what about the relative lack of oxygen and low atmospheric pressure (landing gear wells are not pressurized)?
Amazing little critters!
So, wait, the silk is a sign of active spiders but the compost is still frozen solid?
I am going to be manning a booth this afternoon at the UUCC for the Wyoming chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby. A local activist has scheduled an Earth Day rally for next Saturday, so I’ll be there trying to drum up support (and I said I’d be a speaker, so also boring/confusing the audience with lots of dates, names, and numbers. I have decided to ride my bike to as many places as I can (yesterday I couldn’t–I had an appointment and when I left, the wind started gusting to 50 mph–there was no way I would have made it on time), mostly because of emissions, but also because with these tariffs that may or may not go into place, regular car maintenance is likely to get a lot more expensive. I’d challenge everyone to do the same if they can–I’m not talking 20 or 30 miles, but 2-3–but I know there are a lot of people who just can’t, like a friend who has rheumatoid arthritis and it hurts to do a lot of active stuff.
This is not at all uncommon.
My friend who lives in the far suburbs had three different bird feeders.
Until one night in late fall, a bear wrecked all three of them in one night.
I bow to Mary, Queen of Birds and wither before her magnificent list. I don’t see a quarter as many species at my feeder on any given day.
Robert Westbrook @6. Spiders have been found ballooning at about 16,000 ft so if they can go that far solo maybe with help that can make it the rest of the way.
The free app, Merlin Bird ID, is my friend. The app identifies so many birds. Watching the identified bird list change throughout the different seasons is so fun and the price is right!
This year I’ve been putting out plant pot saucers with water and stones and am getting more visitors than expected. This morning visitors included a chickadee, house finch and squirrel.
Great-tailed grackles in Minnesota? We are indeed in the End Times.
zygoptera@12
My Merlin app is acting up. I’ll hit the listen button, it will record for about 5 seconds, then completely crash.
In the interest of fair trade and reciprocity, the American Crow, American Goldfinch and American Robin will henceforth be named Mexican Crow, Mexican Goldfinch and Mexican Robin.
Thinking Earth Day the BBC has this article noting :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250422-how-50-years-of-climate-change-has-changed-the-face-of-the-blue-marble
I love how awkwardly and ardently amorous grackles are in the spring. The rest of the year, if they’re around they’re so unobtrusive that I don’t notice them. And @larpar, I’ve had to reinstall Merlin when it acted weird, but hey, it’s a wonderful free app so I can’t complain.