#it's ok I'm being paid for my expertise not for my volume of work output

[aroguexenolith]

Ducking in to bring some bird ramblings--

It's been very cold, and I'm very happy that I can work from home instead of having to deal with ice on the road and Atlanta drivers driving with ice on the road.

The cold has been bringing so many good birds to the balcony! There's of course the cardinal pair that lives here and has patronized our business for the last two years as well as the usual house finches (though I think maybe the regular house finch pair invited over all their extended family). We've had them in past years too, but we currently have a whole flock of ten goldfinches coming to the feeders all day. The local family of bluebirds (which is somewhere between four to six birds) has been rounding out our bird primary colors and also being the best bird poofs around.

Some of our rare--but not unusal--bird visitors are chickadees, tufted titmice, and the very rare mourning dove.

But we've also had some pretty unexpected visitors! Spring migration must be starting, because I've seen yellow-rumped warblers and a pine warbler. The pine warbler seems to almost flock with the goldfinches. Both birds are yellow with black bars on their wings, but the pine warbler has a vivid yellow belly that makes it pretty easy to tell them apart.

There's been a phoebe coming around! When I first glanced out the window and saw it, I couldn't believe it at first even though I know them very well and their tail wags are really distinctive. But phoebes aren't supposed to be seed eaters who visit bird feeders! They hang around water and swoop in to get insects. What on earth was this bird doing hopping on the balcony floor picking up seeds?

Then, just this morning, I went to see what bird Peppermint was stalking through the balcony door window. It was a ruby-crowned kinglet! Despite having ruby in their name, these birds are actually very small (ping-pong ball sized?) and almost olive green-ish. But why is it here??? I'm so ecstatic to see it, but kinglets stay up in the tree canopy and don't visit feeders (though don't tell the kinglet at my mom's house that).

I'm not in a dense urban area in that there are a good number of trees around, not a ton of tall buildings, and most homes are still single homes, but this is still unquestionably an urban area. The variety of birds is really exciting to me and also distracting me from my work all day. We're up on the third floor by the tops of some trees, so maybe that makes our balcony count as "canopy."

Still holding out for more bird friends....would love to have regular chickadee, titmice, and dove visitors. Once or twice before I've seen a downy woodpecker at the balcony, but not for a long time. I'm most hoping for nuthatches to appear, as they're my favorite birds. Maybe we'll get some more interesting migrants? One year a huge flock of cedar waxwings spent a few days in the trees right outside my window, and another year I spotted black and white warblers not far away from here.