Christmastide

The First Chickadee to Enjoy the New Feeder

It’s been a little longer than I had hoped since my last entry, but I’ll try to keep this somewhat short. Along with some awesome presents, I also received the stomach bug for Christmas! Fortunately it waited to strike until after I got home from my parents’ house in Greene… Needless to say, I did not enjoy that Christmas present!

Some of the highlights of Christmas 2008 for me were: going to the 11 o’clock Christmas Eve Service at Zion Episcopal Church (I enjoy “high church”, what can I say!?!); getting to sleep in on Christmas morning; staying true to the Williams Family tradition of doing the advent wreath while cinnamon buns were baking; enjoying said buns; taking a couple hours to open presents (even though there were only three of us); laughing hysterically when my mom spilled her soda while dishing up Lob Scows and watching my dad rescue the serving bowl first (who cares if the fancy placemats were getting soaked!?! At least the Lob Scows was safe!); and giving my parents the wonderful gift of my presence (it doesn’t take a lot to please them apparently.) For those that are curious, Lob Scows is a hearty meat and root vegetable (i.e. parsnips, potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, etc.) stew that hails from the Anglesey region of Wales. My grandfather brought the family recipe with him when he came over from Gaerwen, Wales in the 1920s. It’s what we’ve had for Christmas dinner for as long as I can remember. Considering that it takes almost a day to prepare, it’s no wonder that we only make it once a year! We also started a new tradition this year of spreading bird seed at each exterior door. It’s actually a Scandinavian tradition that is supposed to bring good fortune in the New Year. The packs of seeds were gifts from Wild Birds Unlimited.

I received some great birding presents, including a couple of birdhouses, Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Birds, and some gift cards/cash that I applied toward some new birding toys. I also received an awesome new tripod for my camera (which I subsequently used to take some bird photos). It’s the same model tripod that we used to keep a photolog of our siding project when a group of us went to Kentucky on a mission trip in September. (I’ll try to upload some of those photos one of these days.)


Advanced Pole System

I thought I felt well enough last Saturday to go use some of my Christmas chest and purchased an Advanced Pole System from Wild Birds Unlimited, along with a raccoon baffle. Why a raccoon baffle and not just a squirrel baffle you might ask? Well, when I arrived home Christmas night and checked on the window and sock feeders and hung my new feeder, I looked down and noticed what appeared to be raccoon tracks in the snow! I’m not too keen on drawing raccoons to my feeders (they’ve been known to climb feeder poles too), so hopefully the baffle will deter them, as well as the squirrels. So far, it has done the trick. I also picked up a new metal trash can in which to store bird seed.

It was just about dusk when I got home with my new purchases, but I tried installing the pole in the yard. Unfortunately, I forgot that there’s only about three inches of soil in the yard. The rest is rock. At that moment, I would have testified that it was solid rock at that. I finally succumbed to a lack of energy and the fact that I had bent the part of the auger that was unsoldered to the pole. By this time I was exhausted and didn’t end up going to the annual Christmas bash at my friends’ house. On my way home from church the next morning, I stopped by the camp garage and picked up an iron bar and sledge hammer. Creating a guiding hole proved to be highly beneficial. The feeder pole went right into the ground after that. I ended up moving the new feeder to the pole and enjoyed watching some chickadees discover it before going to our summer staff reunion Sunday night.

I still didn’t have much of an appetite, but I enjoyed the reunion anyway—including the Yankee Swap gift exchange. The gift exchange basically involves everyone bringing a wrapped gift with an approximate $1 value. Everyone draws a number, thereby determining the picking order. The first person picks something from the pile and leaves the gift unopened. The next person picks either that gift or something else from the pile. Everything gets interesting when there are a few large packages that everyone seems to want and each round can last for several exchanges. When all was said and done, I ended up with the package that was filled with numerous wrapped boxes… I think the stress of opening all those boxes caused the stomach bug to hit me with a vengeance again on Monday. The only enjoyable part of the day was seeing my first Pine Siskin (more on that later!)

By Tuesday, I had started to get my energy (and appetite back). That afternoon, I ventured back to town and used my WBU gift card and $5 off coupon to purchase another feeder, a suet feeder, a special Advanced Pole System suet feeder attachment, and of course a suet cake. I also used some more of my Christmas chest to purchase some cheap pocket binoculars. My larger binoculars were too powerful to allow me to spy on the birds at the feeders! I think I am set with birding tools for awhile.

So that’s basically what I’ve done in the last week. I am now working on a couple more detailed birding entries and a review of my first First Night Binghamton. Stay tuned.