So many birds!

The chill overnight left a faint layer of frost and K said there was ice in the birdbath.  It certainly made the birds hungry.  Blue jays remembered they hadn't finished off the bark butter balls.  The sickly-looking white throat poked around below.  A male bluebird was evicted from the suet by a male oriole.  The downy woodpeckers were late. 

I saw a pelican and some migrant ducks fly upstream so I went to the window in back to get a better look.  They were gone but mallards were courting. He bobbed his head then she bobbed hers, back and forth, and then she disappeared under him.  They were discretely screened by vegetation.  

Back at the feeders, the mockingbird took over the suet, now conveniently within reach.  When the mockingbird left, warblers moved in.  Two butterbutts (aka yellow rumped warblers) flew at each other over the suet. But the pine warblers got their share.  They've been more aggressive this year - they used to defer to the butterbutts.  Titmice wisely chose sunflower seeds.  

After dinner was in the oven, I went outside.  The temperature had risen into the 50s but the sky was hazy.  None of the birds would join me. When I went back in they came out.  The pair of Carolina wrens switched off, one on the suet the other below scarfing up crumbs.  Red breasted nuthatches finally reappeared.  

I had put out jelly after seeing the oriole but a squirrel got into it.  The squirrel tried to climb the pole and slid down like a movie fireman.  So then it got up on the back of a chair and leaped for the crook of the hanger.  It hung like a bat from the top and ate upside down.  Then it came over to the window and hopped up on the birdhouse I keep meaning to clean out, the better to glare at me for laughing.  

The mockingbird and a pine warbler argued over the suet.  Then a female red bellied woodpecker showed up.  The mockingbird moved to the bark butter.  But the feisty pine warblers stayed with the suet.  

A brown headed nuthatch visited tie seed feeder.  The white throat had a brief bath.  A brown thrasher snatched a bark butter ball.  The juncos arrived in the late afternoon.

I glimpsed buffleheads paddling upstream so I went down to the dock to see if there were more waterbirds.  Just cormorants commuting home.  I was hoping I might have a better angle on the planetary conjunction, but the camera battery gave out and I was cold.  This was the last chance since it's supposed to be raining tomorrow evening.  Back inside with a fresh battery, I noticed egrets were congregating on the lake.  There were also cormorants and a great blue heron in the fading light.