Nutmeg's Lair: Mio - 10/18/2009

With temperatures on the chilly side we drove up to Mio for a couple of days. The colors going up weren't what I had expected - sort of washed out. The man on the radio mentioned that this was the peak of the colors.

After we got to the house I went through my usual ritual of filling all the feeders. No sooner did I get the seeds in one feeder the birds came in from everywhere as if there was a blue-light special. Out back was no different. I have replaced a lot of my suet holders with drilled holes in a few rather dead trees for suet plugs which seem to work just great. We went up to the local feed store to get corn and some more suet cakes only to find it closed early. Went to the local hardware store to get some screening to repair one of my feeders and lucked out on finding the suet cakes at a pretty good price.

When we got back I noticed turkeys on the entrance of the trail that leads out back. I went in to get my camera and sat on the porch step - the turkeys came toward the house and started to peck away at the bird seed on the ground beneath one of my feeders. The count was twenty - males and females. When they were through at the house I followed them out to my blind where there are acouple more feeders. I watched them for a good hour before they decided to move on.

After the turkeys left I noticed in the underbrush under my suet tree Juncos moving around. By this time it was around 7:00 p.m. and I didn't have my beamer with me so I used the flash from the camera. All I could do is hope that these guys would come out a little earlier on Sunday so I could get a picture in the day-light.

Sunday morning was cold but with all the activity going on at the feeders at my blind you really didn't notice the cold that much. The blind has a heater in it so when it got too cold I would go in for a moment to warm a little. The usual visitors White-breasted Nuthatch and Red, Black-capped Chickadees, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers andf Blue Jays. A loud tapping in the woods took me on a walk of curiosity - turned out to be a little Downy making all the noise. A Red-bellied Woodpecker made an appearance so I chased him for a while until he flew off a little deaper into the woods. After lunch I almost had an opportunity to get a better and closer shot of the Red-bellied Woodpecker, there he was perched against the tree eating the suet, raised my camera to focus in and a Blue Jay came in and scared the bird away. I sat on that bench for two hours and that bird never came back.