this is what we do now

last week we put up two bird feeders. one is the kind that sticks to the window with suction cups; we’d been wanting to get one of these for the cats, and by luck we found one in our shed. we also bought a new one at Home Depot that claims to be *squirrel proof*. it’s a pretty ingenious design where the squirrel’s weight shuts the doors to the food. so, four of us now have a new hobby (gertie isn’t interested). who needs TV? thanks to our Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds (Eastern Region), which was mr. smith’s birthday present from me last year, we know that so far, we mostly have black-capped chickadees (upper right photo) with a few white-breasted nuthatches and tufted titmice (or is it titmouses? that’s one lower left). SO COOL!!! hopefully the news will spread once they start TWEETING about the hot new feeders in town… the cats are obsessed. all was fine and peaceful UNTIL… (insert ominous ‘enter-the-villain’ type music here):

it was inevitable really!

actually though, the squirrel-proof feeder works (so far), he just used it to get to the window one. so i think if we move it back to the lilac bush, on a stronger branch (fat squirrel broke the first branch we used, thus dropping feeder to ground and spilling out seeds) we may achieve bird-feeding nirvana. STAY TUNED!