Cold Pecker!

[jdmidwest]

Finally back to even, not plus or minus here at noon, just plain ole zero. This little guy has been using the tree as a windbreak between snacks on the feeder.

[duckydoty]

Good title! LOL! I got 4 feeders and 2 suet cake holders going full time on the front porch right now. Birds have no problem emptying them all 2x a day. Them little suckers are getting expensive to feed!

[Wayne SW/MO]

I suppose they need more food in these conditions. I feed quite a few birds, but not all at once normally. Today the birds are thick around the feeders and don't seem to be in any hurry to leave. I even had a couple of crows under one of them earlier. I also have about 6 doves that apparently didn't go far enough south.

[Njardar]

Nice pic!

[jdmidwest]

I buy my feed at the CO-OP, its hen scratch and runs about $11 for 50 lbs this year. It has cracked corn, milo, wheat, and some other small grains. I mix in some black oil sunflower seed too.

The store bought bird mixes are expensive.

[E Green]

didn't know about the co-op bird seed purchase....will be doing that in the future. My 3 year old and I take old bagels, cover them in peanut butter and sprinkle bird seed on them then hang them from our back deck with a shoestring and stick a pencil through the bagel. Birds love it. We got the idea from MO Dept of Conservation kids magazine. Great little project for parents of little outdoor lovers like mine.

Great picture by the way. I want to get some close up shots of woodpeckers for my wildlife Ozark photo album.

[Wayne SW/MO]

We get visited by Flickers, Downeys, ladderbacks and occasionally a Pileated. The first 3 only come to a feeder with oils in it.

The pilaeted is local. but elusive.

The flickers will often get the oils and go deposit them in tree bark. They will spend a while doing it and make several trips, pretty smart I suppose.

[jdmidwest]

I actually shot the pic from inside the house with my Nikon l610 compact camera zoomed out all the way. I was surprised how it did turn out, its a beater camera I bought to carry around daily.

Dad turned me on to the hen scratch. If you have a feed store locally that mixes grain, they should carry it and it is far cheaper than "bird seed" blends at the store. Or you can have them custom blend you several bags for a fee and mix what ever you want in it, maybe some molasses to sweeten it some?

Nothing special has turned up at the feeders this year, just titmouse, sparrows, cardinals, bluejays, and many snow birds. The pecker was pretty agressive and fought off the little birds when it wanted to feed.

In the past, I have seen a pair of doves. They must have left out this year. They normally raise in the yard each year for the past few years.

[Al Agnew]

We have a water garden in the front yard with about 40 feet of running stream, and we keep a stock tank heater in the pool at the lower end, so even with the extreme cold there was still a little open water where the little waterfalls are. Today there was a flock of robins that had to number well over a hundred hanging around it getting drinks. Meanwhile, at our seed feeder in the back of the house, there was a flock of at least a hundred grackles.

Of course, there were the usual suspects as well, including chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, juncos, fox sparrows, white throated sparrows, goldfinches, house finches (but very few of them...they seem to have had a population crash around the house this winter), a couple of yellow-rumped warblers, blue jays, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, a yellow bellied sapsucker, and our resident caroline wrens.

We've also had a towhee hanging around the feeder, first time that's ever happened; they are usually too shy to get close to the house. Earlier this winter we had a very oddly colored goldfinch. The males turn drab grayish yellow and lose their black forehead cap in the winter, but this one was very light lemon yellow with the usually black wings being a medium gray.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I buy my feed at the CO-OP, its hen scratch and runs about $11 for 50 lbs this year. It has cracked corn, milo, wheat, and some other small grains. I mix in some black oil sunflower seed too.

The store bought bird mixes are expensive.

Ouch! MFA here is only $7.