Wet

Rain fell during most of the daylight hours, beginning after breakfast.  But before that, I got a lot of pictures, starting with the female pileated woodpecker.  A white breasted nuthatch was driven off by that pest of a myrtle warbler.  Starlings and blackbirds came and went quickly.  Bluebirds, thankfully, weren't so flighty. 

White throated sparrows and juncos stayed on the ground.  Carolina wrens seemed to be everywhere.  A brown headed nuthatch slipped in for a seed.  When I put out the very last tub of barkbutter, a brown thrasher was first in line.  A pine warbler got a bit of suet.  House finches had a tender moment.  A mockingbird struggled to reach the suet.  Goldfinches watched from the dogwood.  

The camellia was still blooming, proof it has been a mild winter.  I got a glimpse of a female towhee.  A downy and a red belled woodpecker, both female, each had a turn at the suet.  

Cold gale

Clouds were flying South all day, some fluffy cotton, some dark and heavy.  The wind at ground level was very gusty, churning water, thrashing trees, and scooping up fallen leaves. A murmuration of blackbirds landed in the trees, then took off and swirled above the creek. 

After lunch, a Carolina wren checked out the bark butter dish.  I spotted the first yellow rumped warbler of the season.  Finches and chickadees took over the sunflower seeds.  Squirrels were busy hunting food on the ground.  

Geese were finding something in the water in front of our yard.  An egret labored to fly North into the wind.  On the  creek, cormorants herded another school of fish.  A young cormorant shared the deadfall on the lake with a mallard pair. 

Lots of birds

I was busy before lunch and got no photos of all the pelicans fishing.  They were making spectacular dives.  The sky grew more cloudy.  At lunch, the butterbutt hung under the feeder and stuffed itself.  Then it kept an eye out from a twig.  A robin also watched. Downy and red bellied woodpeckers took turns on the suet.  One dove had lost the contour feathers from one wing.  Blue jays crammed a row of bark butter balls down the length of their beaks. 

The red breasted mergansers hung out by the dam except when fish were sighted elsewhere.  A heron and a pelican flew in together. At least seven shoveler drakes were out on the lake.  Late in the afternoon I saw a male hoodie. 

 K threw out some fancy rice that she had begun to cook by mistake.  Only the doves paid any attention. One squirrel seemed scared of the rice.  My guess is that the rice smelled faintly beafy.  One of the pesky starlings turned out to be a female red winged blackbird. Other starlings watched me hoping I would leave. 

A female oriole visited briefly.  I wonder if it was the same one I saw before.  Then bluebirds arrived.  White throats scurried around.  The female red bellied woodpecker kept trying to eat suet like a pileated, while clinging to the post, but she couldn't quite reach it  She licked the suet with a long tongue.