Lots of Birds & a Squirrel

Despite the below zero temperature this morning and, to be honest, most of the day, the birds flocked to the feeders today.  The one I was happiest about was a Red-bellied Woodpecker that visited the tube feeder and harassed the Sparrows that like to sit on the perches. It tolerated Sparrows on a couple of the perches but when a third bird tried to land on a perch the woodpecker would lunge at it and drive it away. The Downy Woodpecker came to the suet cakes too but was in deep shadow and didn't really show up in the picture.

I was equally happy to see the Nuthatch. It spent some time on the suet pellets and then moved down to the tube feeder where it posed nicely.

The Cardinal was the first arrival and spent quite a bit of time on the platform feeder. I guess it's a good thing I refilled all the feeders yesterday.

A squirrel noticed that the peanut wreath had nuts in it and spent a bit of time harvesting them one by one. It got good at shoving two nuts in its mouth to carry away and I watched it bury one in the snow. Not the best place to hide nuts.

I decided to play with paint today. I watched the next video and dug out a couple bigger loose sheets of paper. She demonstrated painting all over the paper with a few colors and then using different things to create effects, like sprinkling salt or dripping alcohol and sticking bubble wrap or cling film onto wet paint and letting it dry. The next step is to cut out shapes to make a collage or two in our sketchbooks. She drew frogs but I may do fish. I kind of like painting and drawing fish.

Speaking of frogs, that was the next drawing in the 3-D book, two frogs on a lily pad. It was fun to draw.

Today's toss was the last of the diapers, only 2 years after the last diaper wearer was around.

This evening my brother TW stopped over to drop off some canning jars that they no longer need. I was glad to see him to reassure myself that he really is okay or at least getting there.

--Barbara