Not much happening

Things have been quiet around the Aerie the last few days. The weather has been repetitious: daytime highs between 55 and 60 degrees, little wind, overcast, dreary. The birds have been less than spectacular with the same-old-same-old crowd crowd coming to the feeders. Terry's been to an Embroiderer's Guild chapter meeting and done some pre-travel shopping.

The two exceptional visitors we've had were the return of Blackie (our bruin friend) and the first male Red-breasted grosbeak of the year.

Blackie last showed up on the evening of May 1 at 9:35 PM.
You can see the light is still on in Terry's sewing/TV room in the background.
Photo taken by a Moultrie 3.1 Game Camera

This is the first male Rose-breasted Grosbeak of the season.
He didn't stay long and I rushed to snap this photo through the glass of
the kitchen window, hence the slight fuzzy nature of the pic.

The Chipmunks have been busy harvesting the sunflower seeds on the ground and off the hanging bird feeders. One in particular has taken to shimmying up the metal pole and jumping over to the feeder to help himself.

Part of the clean-up crew.

And someone, either a mouse or a chippy, has taken to storing sunflower seeds in the grill.

Both the left and right side of the grill are chock full of seeds.
I hope they like the toasted variety. In the interest of fire safety,
I'll be digging these out in a little bit.
I'm guessing there's at least a cup of seeds in there.

Awhile back, when I was up at the Bolt Hole, I mentioned that a red squirrel had built a nest in the attached woodshed. I have a piece of plastic pool liner covering the stacked wood (because the roof leaks) and the squirrel had gathered pink insulation from somewhere (hopefully not the walls) into a ball that was about a peck basket size with a little hole in the side.

Red squirrel nest in the woodshed.
One good reason they are considered vermin.