Strange January weather has backyard wildlife acting peculiarly
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The morning coldness was not the only thing that greeted me as I walked out to check my bird feeders early in the week. Eleven red-shafted northern flickers flew away from the feeders along with American goldfinches, house finches and a few black-capped chickadees.
The recent cold snap has caused my backyard birds to show up in late January rather than in early November, as they have done historically. I have finally had to refill my bird feeders.
I spent Tuesday morning sitting in my pickup, my blind, watching the birds work their way back to the feeders.
The goldfinches attacked the seed socks loaded with nyjer seeds and joined a few house finches at a feeder loaded with sunflower hearts.
A downy woodpecker and a few black-capped chickadees worked on a feeder filled with raw peanuts, while the flickers hammered away on the frozen suet cakes. As pieces of suet fell to the ground, lazy flickers and a couple of Eurasian collared doves picked them up and ate them.
About an hour into my watching, a chickadee sounded an attack alarm, causing most of the birds to fly away.
A sharp-shinned hawk had shown up and began chasing a goldfinch, but was unable to catch it. The hawk finally landed just a short distance from me and gave me the evil eye.
Later in the day, while walking across the lawn, I saw scattered feathers of a house finch that the raptor had eaten.
I am glad that some of the winter birds are back — but with no snow, the frost is going deep into the ground. On warm days, the top inch or two will thaw, making a slippery, muddy mess and encouraging some of the plants to start growing.
In late December, some of my trees started budding out. On Christmas Day, we even had nightcrawlers on our driveway during a rainstorm. Both my daffodils and crocuses have sprouted and grown about an inch out of the ground. They are now frozen, but I hope they will still bloom in March or April.
It is time for the great horned owls to be hooking up together, but I have not heard any of them calling yet. Hopefully, they will start pretty soon. I love hearing stories from people who are disturbed by the owls waking them up with their mating calls.
Another strange happening is that the trumpeter swans have not shown up at Deer Parks Wildlife Management Area, west of the Menan Buttes.
On Friday morning, I only saw three of them in the corn field. I understand that there are hundreds in the corn fields around Ririe, and there are still plenty of them on the Henrys Fork near St. Anthony and Last Chance.
This week, the ice has formed almost down to the powerline on Ririe Reservoir, so it should cap over next week — unless we get a warm spell with temperatures in the 40s and 50s.
It would be great to get at least a couple of weeks of ice fishing for kokanee on Ririe. While trolling for them recently has been slow, we are catching a few in the 14-inch range.
It has been a very strange winter, and may be a very strange spring and summer. We will just have to wait and see.