9:00 AM – With any luck, this will be the last ‘left-over’ content posting. Until the new video’s are ready, here’s the webpage from one year ago today:

Sunday – February 5, 2017

6:37 AM – We’re pleased to see that the meal worm feeder is attracting Bluebirds. Here’s a good video of one:

Although the Goldfinches are most numerous right now, we still have the Purple Finch and House Finch. The first video shows the Purple Finch sharing with the Goldfinches and some sparrows:

The second shows what I believe is a House Finch, also with Goldfinches. The color on this one looks more red than purple to me, but it’s easy to confuse the two. Easy for me, anyway.

4:14 AM – Raccoon was back last night, but thwarted by lack of feeders, and pepper suet. We took in all the ones on the deck, and it’s clear that the pepper suet worked. He didn’t even try for it. Instead he scavenged on the ground under the feeders. That’s fine, he’s welcome to that, as long as he’s gone when we let the dog out.

1:00 AM   Another old one. Perhaps Monday we’ll go back to current content.

February 4. 2017

1:10 PM – Here’s the Red-Bellied Woodpecker at the pepper suet feeder. He attacks for a few seconds, leaves, returns and so on. His peak is really strong looking, which is to be expected from a creature that gouges holes in trees for a living.

6:30 AM – The Goldfinch flock is still around, in spite of the invasion of Brown Headed Cowbirds. Here they are swarming the platform feeder. Note the solitary sparrow in the middle of them, unperturbed.

6:20 AM – It looks like we have two raccoons. In the video below you’ll see one shadowy figure cross the screen, followed a few seconds later by another. I thought the first one might be a cat, but the shape is more raccoon than feline. Last night I brought in the vulnerable feeders, so they got nothing. Maybe a week or so of that will permanently discourage them, but that’s optimistic.

1:00 AM – One more Super-Retro post, but I should be back in action, with new and exciting videos of birds eating seeds and drinking water.

Tuesday 2.3.2017

11:40 AM – It’s been a busy day for birds, what with the Cowbird and Blackbird invasion. Here’s the Redwing Blackbird with some Cowbirds in the platform feeder.

Another Redwing tries some meal worms. These birds are much bigger than our usual customers.

9:10 AM – There are a number of Redwing Blackbirds flocking with the Cowbirds. They usually go to the tube feeders, the Squirrel Busters, or on the ground, not the platform feeder. Here’s the Cowbirds feeding, when a Redwing joins them for a few moments.

8:45 AM – From out of nowhere a flock of these birds hit the deck platform feeder. I think they’re Brown Headed Cowbirds. I’ve never seen one around here before. They moved in a took over for about a minute, then flew off together. They remind me of a flash mob looting a convenience store.

8:35 AM – Here’s the first sighting of a Bluebird at the worm feeder:

4:05 AM – We learned one thing for sure last night: Mr. Raccoon really likes meal worms. See video below of him shoveling worms into his jaws with his little hands. We also learned that the pepper suet works, and in fact does repel mammals. The video shows his preliminary suet stealing routine, then he’s gone. We can verify this at first light by looking at the pepper suet for gnawing.

Finally, we don’t have good clear video of the deck suet feeder, but I can see commotion in the background of the worm feeder video. I assume that was him getting into the suet, but we’ll look for raccoon gnaw marks to confirm.

All this means we’ll have to rearrange the feeders – probably the Squirrel Buster will replace the deck suet feeder, which will go, where? We may not be able to protect it, so we’ll hang it in a tree a good distance from the deck and call it a Raccoon Feeder.

Here’s ‘Rocky’ and the worms:

And ‘Rocky’ with the pepper suet:

1:00 AM – Continuing our retro-post series with one from February 2, 2017.

Thursday – 2.2.2017

7:10 PM – Here’s a good close up video of a male Downy Woodpecker at the suet feeder. He’s very enthusiastic, bobbing and weaving and stabbing the suet.

2:25 PM – The mealworm feeder is new to us. We always provided some kind of seed, or suet. The mealworms are supposed to attract Bluebirds – actually, a number of different birds, but we have our eye on increasing the Bluebird population. After we put the feeder up, not much happened. But the next day we had light, but steady, traffic. Here’s a couple of the visitors. Not Bluebirds, but Carolina Wren, and what I thought was a non-breeding Goldfinch (which don’t have the bright colors). However, the beak is wrong – it seems to be too small and thin. That makes it look like some variety of warbler, but I can’t tell which one. Bottom line is, it might be a Goldfinch, might not. (NOTE: It’s a Pine Warbler. We got better images and can see the stripe on the chest/belly.)

Unidentified bird that might be a Goldfinch or warbler of some kind. It turned out to be a Pine Warbler:

12:30 AM – In an effort to discourage the raccoon, we bought hot pepper flavored suet at Wild Birds Unlimited. Birds can’t taste the hot pepper, but mammals (raccoons) can. We put it in the suet feeder yesterday. So far tonight, ‘Rocky’ hasn’t been around, but raccoon rampage prime time (from 1:00 to 5:00 AM) is approaching. With any luck, we’ll get videos of ‘Rocky’ tasting and spitting out the spiced up suet. The birds have sampled it, and seem to like it just fine. Here are videos of a Goldfinch, Brown Headed Nuthatch and male Downy Woodpecker at the feeder.

1:00 AM – We continue with our ‘One Year Ago Today’ posts, with this very lengthy post from February 1, 2017.

Wednesday – 2.1.2017

4:35 PM – A flock of Goldfinches moved into the neighborhood recently. The cold winter up north drove them further south than they usually come, according to the lady at Wild Birds Unlimited. In this video they are swarming a finch thistle sock. They are all Goldfinches, I think. The Cornell bird website shows non-producing males/females with very little yellow color. I estimate there’s about 10 – 12 in this flock, but that could be wildly inaccurate. The video is about three minutes long, and nothing much happens except Goldfinches feeding at the thistle sock, and occasionally squabbling about territory.

7:50 AM – Our first customers at the worm feeder (captured by the Worm Cam) are two Titmice.

4:20 AM – We made a trip to the Wild Birds Unlimited yesterday morning, and indulged ourselves. We bought two new feeders – one for big round blocks of suet, and one for meal worms (not the live ones). The latter is supposed to attract Bluebirds. We also bought a Bluebird house, a slanted arm to attach to the deck for one of the new feeders, and some squares of replacement suet. One of them is Pepper flavored. The Birds Unlimited expert tells us birds can’t taste the hot pepper flavor, but mammals – meaning raccoons – can. The theory is ‘Rocky’ will taste it, and never return. To that feeder, anyway.

Yesterday afternoon we set up the feeders, and rearranged the cameras. We’ll put up the Bluebird house tomorrow, probably. The new arrangement isn’t permanent yet, we’ll see how it works.

Of course ‘Rocky’ Raccoon visited, twice last night. The second time he was on the deck rail while we were right inside. The video below shows him reaching for the deck suet feeder, looking at the house, listening, then deciding to leave. On the first visit, he got into the new suet feeder on the deck, the platform feeder and the original suet feeder in the tree. He didn’t knock that one down this time, but did detach the camera from it’s mount and leave it on the ground.

These videos aren’t very good, but I’ll edit them down and post them to illustrate and document ‘Rocky’s’ bad behavior.

Here’s ‘Rocky’ listening to us inside the house:

Here he’s into the tree suet feeder:

1: 00 AM – We’re presenting several ‘One Year Ago Today’ posts, starting with this post from January 31, 2017.

Tuesday – 1.31.2017

7:25 AM – The suet feeder, with a new block of nut and berry suet, is popular this morning. Here’s a pair of what we thought were Goldfinches, but are actually Pine Warblers:

And a Carolina Wren:

4:20 AM – Another visit from the raccoon, though this one was brief, and the timing unexpected. He hit the platform feeder at 4:05 AM, about fifteen minutes ago. D and the dog were in the living room, while the bandit was just outside eating the scraps of suet left over from his adventures of last night. A bold move by the bushy scavenger. Occasionally he pauses, as if listening to D on the other side of the wall. Not shown in this video is his exit from the porch, with a large piece of suet to-go in his jaws.