And Then I Slipped and Fell
Snow and freezing rain all night, so, naturally, I went for a walk around the river this morning. All the trails were revealed in bright white against the dark underbrush encased in ice. It was nice to be out in the cold. I enjoy the brisk and damp. Perhaps I am a goose.
Bird activity was low. Jays, chickadees, and woodpeckers called out from the treetops but didn’t break cover to reveal themselves. However, I did see a sassy Hooded Merganser, a kingfisher, a pair of herons, a few white-throated sparrows, and plenty of my fellow geese. (I’ll upload pics eventually. I’m still shooting often but have fallen behind on processing the images.)
On my way home, I slipped on an ice patch and had a bit of a fall in the grass, which is actually quite hard, because it’s winter. I’m fine. My camera is fine. Everyone’s fine. Unfortunately, I didn’t roll properly, and took the impact with my forearm, jamming up my shoulder a little. It will be stiff in the morning. Or fine. It could go either way. It seems fine right now, anyway.
I eventually arrived home to a yard full of starlings. Maybe a hundred or so. They were on the patio, in the trees, atop the garage, and all over the lawn. A couple dozen were focused on the suet I put out for woodpeckers and house sparrows. Sparrows and woodpeckers love the peanut bits embedded in the suet, but for sparrows, actually getting at them is a tremendous amount of work, which keeps them too distracted to raid the platform feeder, which has no peanut bits available.
Meanwhile, for the starlings, the suet feeder is a kind of karmic torment. Starlings squabble incessantly. No sooner does one perch at the feeder than another comes along and chases her off before she can get even a nibble. The victor is then immediately ambushed and run off herself. The birds bicker and peck at one another, causing the feeder to swing about wildly, and nobody gets anything to eat. They must have been at it for two hours and hardly made a dent in the suet block!
Ridiculous.