Today I am Thankful for............ Days 13 & 14

My view from the office window where I work. 

There is a beautiful dogwood tree right outside to the right.  In the spring the flowers are pink and breathtaking.  In the fall the leaves turn the most gorgeous shade of deep red.  We have two bird feeders and one suet feeder and HWNSNBP usually comes by on Sunday to refill everything.

The temperatures have dropped considerably this week and there has been a slew of feathered friends looking for a quick meal.  We've had male and female cardinals, blue jays, wrens, sparrows, and a few types of woodpeckers to name a few.  The dogwood berries are still on this tree, not like the ones at home which the squirrels have busied themselves with.  (I wouldn't mind it if they ate the berries but they just start pinching them off in late August leaving none for the birds in the winter.)  As we get further into the cold weather season, the birds will go for those fatty-rich berries.

Across the horseshoe driveway is the little piece of land that is really not that little as it can hold the population of the school at least times two.  Directly across from me is the school sign that lets the community know what's going on here each month.  It faces the road coming and going so I only see the end view.  There is a nice planting of shrubs surrounding the sign and off to the right we have several young trees that have been planted in memory of a few of our staff members who have passed on.

To the left of the sign and a little closer towards the building is the post with the bluebird nesting box that HWNSNBP and I got permission to install.  I do keep a pair of binoculars at my desk to help me monitor just what kind of birds are hanging around that box. 

Yesterday, even though by the calendar we are still in autumn, we got a taste of winter.  The temperatures were below freezing and the wind, well the wind definitely had a bite.  My eyes were drawn to the nest box as I saw one bluebird sitting atop the post and the other attempting to hover over it.  So I grabbed my binoculars to see what was going on.  There was another bird in the box. I guessed it wasn't a bluebird which was why the blues were so seemingly upset.

This was happening while there was a discussion going on in our office, a gripe session, about the heating system and how cold some of the classrooms were with the air blowing and the temperature registering 69º.

That poor little bird in the box was trying to shelter itself from the cold wind.  The "feels like" temperature had gone well below 32º.  Bluebirds will congregate in nestboxes in the winter to keeping each other warm while avoiding the wind.  My guess is that they were not willing to share their box with another bird species and were trying to coax it out of there.

I bet they all would have been happy in a 69º room.