Friends Along the Trail

White-breasted Nuthatch
(Sitta carolinensis)

And so it begins..... Food for our small woodland friends is disappearing rapidly, and we have just begun our traditional winter "thing" of hanging feeders and suet at various places along the trail into the deep woods and keeping them filled. In the depths of the long white season, there will be deer feeding stations as well: grain and apples, heaps of fragrant cedar cut for the resident White-tails to feed on.

When we arrived yesterday morning, the feeders were already empty, and a whole throng of chickadees was waiting for us in the trees, dancing about and chirruping a rowdy welcome in the cold sunlight. Within a few days, they will be sitting on my shoulders as I top up their food supply, and oh how they will sing.

White-breasted Nuthatches have begun to visit within the last few days, and this one was a flurry of motion, zooming into the feeder and then wheeling away to a nearby pine with its beak full of sunflower seeds. Once in place, it hammered its breakfast against the bark of the tree to dislodge the husk and reveal the tasty contents. Its sharp nasal song soon brought its mate to the feeder too.

For the moment, lugging bags of seed and suet up the trail is fairly easy going, but we are already in training for deep winter forays along the trail, wearing snowshoes and pulling toboggans of food for our wild companions. It will not be long, and yesterday I found myself thinking about putting up some sort of windbreak so that I can do some serious bird photography this winter.