Mary Poppins would be proud!

right outside our kitchen window we have several bird feeders. we can easily see the them in the morning while we're eating breakfast and drinking our coffee. watching the birds is a nice slow start to the day, which seems to be just what i need as I'm getting older!

some of the feeders are your traditional hanging variety, but we also scatter some of the feed on some of our *abundant* rocks. we even have a rock "bowl" that seems especially attractive to the cardinals and blue jays. mostly we just feed our birds black oil sunflower seeds, as that seems to be what they really like. there is also a little suet hanger, regular bird seed, corn still on the cob, and the high protein turkey feed that we are giving to the meat chickens. (any guesses as to who spread that around out there?)


A and B both enjoy standing at the window and looking at the birds. A can identify a handful of birds, and since she's not yet 3 years old, i think that's pretty impressive!

here is a list of what we've seen so far this spring:

*white breasted nuthatch
*starling
*cardinal
*gold finch
*purple finch
*mourning dove
*cow bird
*tufted titmouse
*blue jay
*squirrel
*chipmunk
*chickadee
*common flicker
*downy (hairy?) woodpecker
*lots of little brown birds that we haven't identified yet

i know that's not a list that would make the heart of an ornithologist go pitter-pat, but it surely is colorful! a few weeks ago, we had flocks of finches eating at the big rock. many times there were more than 40 gold and purple finches gathered to eat. all the birds like the mulberry tree, and will retreat to the safety of its branches whenever they are startled.

i love living here in the country, and i like that i can enjoy something so simple with my family at mealtimes. it seems that the simple things of life are what we enjoy and treasure most.