Our feeders are strategically placed in the Japanese Maple, affording us a bird's eye view from many windows and doors in the house. Sheer perfection, when it comes to watching nature from a warm perch, pun intended.
Gavin, nine years old and ALWAYS thinking and querying, loves to sit at the kitchen island, facing the big sliders. He'll munch his lunch and watch the show, identifying species as they appear. When one that is new to him comes along, he'll ask about it and then never forget its name.
"G'ma, there's a BIG bird out there; it walks like a chicken and has a beak like one. What IS that?"
You know, the Mourning Dove DOES walk like a chicken, as Gav then demonstrated for Gramps! And it pecks like one, too, with a similar beak. Why didn't we think of that? Wish he was here yesterday, when…
I was swapping NIK's lens with the intention of capturing Big Kahuna, our elusive male Cardinal. He's been camera shy, this winter; I was determined. Suddenly and doing a bit of a double take, Joe exclaimed:
"Nick, what IS that in the tree?"
Its rump was facing us and at first, Joe thought it might be a red squirrel. But as it turned - offering a great photo op, I might add - we realized:
"OMG," said Joe, "it's a Robin!"
Well I have to tall y'all, this was a first for February in the tundra, especially when Robin and Kahuna opted to share a tree.
Now, it's doubtful that we're headed for an early Spring, so this guy must have decided to lay over for the winter. Since Robins do not eat birdseed - ever - frozen berries and such offer their means to survival. Also, they grow an under-layer of down feathers to hold in body heat and a Google search further tells me that they shiver to gain warmth.It occurs to me, now, that when we returned from Murrells Inlet to find red berries added to our front-porch wreath gone, the culprit was this stray bird. That was a first, too, as we've always had to remove spent berries at the end of the season. Oh, and for the record, look who hung around for a portrait...
Nature. It never ceases to amaze us.
