One of the drawbacks to feeding birds is that ALL birds can want to participate. This puts our family in the unenviable position of having to discriminate about which birds we want to feed. All, the poor little Cooper's Hawk, who just wants to have breakfast or dinner just like all the other little songbirds, often comes by looking for a handout as well. His arrival requires I take a trip upstairs out on the deck and spend time jumping, clapping, shouting and sometimes even photograph taking to move him on to a more distant eatery.
Early last year I had once seen a small Pine Siskin crouched in the corner of the deck and I thought, "Oh, poor thing, he must have run into the glass." And perhaps he had (Siskins are quite stupid compared to most), but when I went out to rescue him from possibily being eaten by a cat, the fear of me drove him off the deck into quickly moving path of the hawk who had been waiting unbeknownst to me. Life is full of unintended consequences - alas. That round went to the hawk.
But today the victory was mine. This beautiful but unappreciated hunter finally flew off in pursuit of a Junco, but a little yelling on my part distracted him enough to let the small dodging bird escape and off the hawk went, looking for a better diner with more of a welcome.
I bear him no ill will, but better that he eat a bird I do not know!
Things are definitely beginning to thaw here in the Pacific Northwest. It must have started last evening before the temperature dropped again because we had one great icicle on our house and the neighbors had a whole row of them. You'll notice on our single icicle above that the water is running off the end of it. I remember as a kid we loved icicles and would break them off and suck on them. Hm. I suppose we could have been ingesting all kinds of not so good things, but it was fun and tasted good! We would also have sword fights. The neighbor's icicles below are quite decorative!
The snow is gone from the tree in the backyard, but the biggest indication that the weather has turned for the moment (besides the rain which just started after I began typing) is the fact that the birds thought it was time for a major bath event. We heat the birdbath when it is freezing (you can maybe sort of make out the heating element in the photos below) but while the water never froze and they often stopped by to drink, none of the birds took a bath during the snowy week past. Today,however, things have changed.
Today they have all jumped in and they keep shoving each other out of the way over and over again. Take a look at what they are doing to my office window. 
The robin simply shoved his way in and all the pine siskins & finches bolted!
