THE BIRDS

We had a bizarre occurrence at our house the other day.... Looking out the window we noticed a bunch of birds. Now, this was nothing new as we have a bird feeder out there. Billy filled the feeder up before the storms hit. With all the snow the birds have been very gathering in our backyard and swapping tales between spitting sunflower seeds. I imagine they chirruped about how long it took to shovel out their nests, how they had 18 freaking inches covering the entryway and to complain about the fact that all the bird feeders in the neighborhood are either snowed in or plum out of food and how marvelous it is that Mrs. Kendrick risked life and limb to tromp through knee high snow up her giant hill (hey, it IS giant to a wee bird so phhhtt) to clear the bird feeder for her fine feathered friends.... Thus it was not unusual to have several birds out there at any given time. However after a few glances we started realizing this was not several... this was like the bird party of the year out there... not our usual mix of cardinals, blue jays, swallows and such either... ROBINS... every single one of them. I have never seen so many robins in one place in my life. They say robins are the harbingers of spring (bring it on baby!) but man... they were REALLY making a statement. They were hanging out in our maple and our birch, flitting about at the bird feeder, leaving wee birdie prints in the snow and making quick work of EVERY SINGLE red berry on our holly tree. In less than an hour they had finished it off... no small feat mind you... We have a big holly tree with a LOT of berries. While I miss the cheerful red, at least I don't have to worry about Lizzie poisoning herself with them this year. Billy went out and caught a bit of the action at the holly tree on camera. The pictures don't really do their numbers (or their beauty) justice but I think he got some great shots.

Base of the holly tree:

I really like this shot
Hanging out digestin'....

It was really fun to watch them all morning. I admit I did have a wee uh oh moment when I went outside to throw some trash out. Usually you step outside and have a few seconds before the slam of the screen door sends all wildlife fleeing for dear life. With these folks they fluttered their wings then a large group in the nearest tree just turned their heads to look at me. After several moments of being stared at by hundreds of beady black eyes, 2 things happened. 1) I noticed these were not poor skinny half starved birds meekly trying to get a scrap. These were fat healthy fluffy proud "how dare you interrupt our meal" birds. I slowly started seeing black leather jackets over bright red t-shirts and wondered where their Harleys were parked. 2) I silently cursed Alfred Hitchcock for instilling deep in my subconscious a fear that they were getting ready to launch themselves from the tree branches and beak me to death. I slowly backed up ready at a moments notice to duck and protect my head... fumbled for the door, found the handle and let out a sigh of relief until I realized I had inadvertently locked myself out. Crud.