Flowers and Birds

Hello nature lovers. Spring is bustin' out all over here with the saucer magnolias with their pink blossoms, the forsythia and daffodils with their yellows and azalias, which my wife planted at the edge of the yard almost in the woods.  Also wild redbuds, of which I have one in my yard are in bloom.  I've never understood why they call them redbuds when the color is more of a pink/violet color.  In that same vein, why do they call purple finches purple when they are really red, or as Petersen so beautifully describes them, "a sparrow dipped in wine."  A Melanerpes carolinus, or red-bellied woodpecker has no red belly, just a light peach color.

Speaking of which, I caught two at my feeder yesterday partaking of the sunflower seeds and "woodpecker" suet cake, from Lower.  In the top picture notice that this one has a red head, which means he is a male.  He has  no place to prop his stiff tail to keep his upright position like he does on trees.  It's quite funny as he tries to balance himself at the feeder, sometimes swinging back and forth like an uneven-bar Olympian. In the bottom three pictures is a female with no red head, just red on the back of the neck. I suspect they are mates with, hopefully, a nest nearby with eggs or little 'uns.  I never see them together, so I would guess that one is minding the nest while the other feeds.

I am making an unscientific study of the of the order of bravery, or lack thereof,  of birds at my feeder - that is who will stand his ground when other birds fly in.  I have it in this order: Number one by far is the little American goldfinch.  He will fight away anything in his size range and many larger than himself. The next is the purple finch, quite a scrapper.
Then comes the larger ones, the cardinal, which surprisingly is a bit of a coward according to his size.  I guess he relies on the brilliant crimson to warn others off.

The bluejays will stand down to nothing except the woodpecker.  He is king - when he comes in all scatter.  It might be his sword-like beak that intimidates them.

The most cowardly are the poor Carolina chickadees and the titmice.  When they feed on sunflower seeds, they pick one up and fly to a nearby limb and peck up to 30 times to open it to get at the little seed.  It hardly seems worth their energy for the small reward.  In contrast, the finches sit on the feeder and with their strong beaks crack open the seeds and gorge themselves.  I feel sorry for the titmice and chickadees and sometimes scare the finches away.  In addition they clog the feeder openings with hulled out seeds.  I don't much like them, but that is nature - everything has its own niche.  And I really do admire the spring and summer bright yellow of the male golden finches. In winter he looks like a female, a drab brownish, grayish, sparrow-like bird.  Although cheated out of the brilliant colors of the cardinals, purple finches, goldfinches, hummingbirds and others, she is safer in her nest, as well as at other times of the year.   It seems, everything has a price.