I was bringing out a suet cake to the red star, which was empty. The square cake was still in the plastic container but I had taken the outer label off. I was about 4 feet from the tree and a little nuthatch was forlornly picking at the empty star. She saw the suet I was carrying and evidently recognized it and wanted some, because she started flitting back and forth from branch to branch in the tree, but not flying away as I crept closer and sloooowly lifted my hand up the the closest branch... she flitted over to a twig and leeeaned over and I could feel her *peck peck pecking* the top of the suet cake. I was completely enchanted. I held very still but she flipped upside down and hung from the twig (like they do) and tried to peck the *side* of the cake, which of course meant she was pecking the hard plastic case it came in. I tried to gently tilt it, but she got spooked and jumped to a further branch. I waited, then when she wouldn't come back over I went ahead and put it in the star, and then she took off. Isn't that amazing??? :)
On a related note, we have a nesting pair of nuthatches in our tool shed. There's a chipmunk hole in the top right of the shed and I noticed a big pile of leaves up in the rafter but didn't think about it until yesterday, when Jim and I spent about an hour or so sitting on the deck with binoculars (we each had a pair), watching the two nuthatches pop in and out of the hole in the shed, and also show up with green things and beat them (audibly) on the roof of the shed for a while before bringing them inside. As I approach the shed to get something, a nuthatch runs up and down the tree trunk nearby, which makes a little scratching noise and seems like an agitated reaction. I try to get away as fast as I can. We're wondering how long we can let the lawn grow without having to get the (riding) lawn mower out of the shed!
JimE is gone for a week to a work convention and then meeting up with his brothers to finally empty out their Mom's storage unit and bring the stuff back up to Marion. We went to Dave's birthday party last night and despite trying very hard to leave at a reasonable hour, Jim's flight was at 7 am this morning so he got a miserably small amount of sleep and better go to bed early tonight. I miss him already! But as a nice distraction, the chickens come this week and I just finished building the brooder base today, galvanized grid wire over a wood frame to sit in a plastic bin. Chicken pics will be posted when I have any! :)
2 comments:
so you're getting new fresh chickens that are going to peck each other to death?
I didn't get any Rhode Island Reds, and I didn't get any labeled as "cautious" or "nervous", which should help :)
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