See this Philadelphia Inquirer article where Pam from Nature by the Yard is quoted on ways to attract wildlife to your yard in the winter, including placing a “nature-trimmed” Christmas tree outside.
Link to article.

Hello all.
So, here is the saga of the screech owls. They have been hanging around my yard, one in the box, the other in the tree since March. Presumably, the female was incubating while the male fed her at night. Recently, I noticed they had both moved to a crab apple tree in my yard.

In the late afternoon, one of them would move back in the box. I’ve never seen the fledglings, but I’m hopeful this pair was successful. I want to believe they left the box to encourage the young to leave.

Now, it has been two days, and there is no sign of either. I have to say, I miss them and I’ve been a little melancholy today. I hope they come back next year. I’ve gotten so much pleasure from watching them.

Another recent addition to the yard is a family of Tufted Titmice. They are busy going back and forth feeding their clutch. I counted 7 trips in 15 minutes by both parent. When I hang the laundry on the line which is tied to the tree their box is on, the babies chirp and peep hoping it is mom or dad with their next meal.

I haven’t seen my screech owl in the box for about 10 days. I’m not sure if it is hunkered down in the box because the chickadees and bluejays are relentless in their harassment, if it is a female sitting on eggs or maybe it left. But I was out moving logs from the wood pile yesterday and happen to glance up in a tree next to the one that holds the box and I found another owl, sitting in the ivy.

I’m hoping they are a pair and the one in the ivy is the male. He’ll feed her through the night as she incubates the eggs. I may try to scope them out tonight since it is supposed to be clear and try to watch the action. Will keep you all posted. Stay tuned. Please comment so I know someone is reading this.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on it for years now. What exactly is that smell? Last Sunday, it was a warm day, but there wasn’t that smell; the smell of spring. This morning, I went out to drive one of my sons to school and there was something in the air. It just smelled like spring. The birds must have felt it too. A Northern Cardinal was singing his song “popcorn, peanuts, chiiiiiippps” instead of calling. The House Finches were singing too. On my way to work in Princeton, I had the sun roof open and I heard the Pe-ter, pe-ter, pe-ter of the Tufted Titmouse song.

Skunk cabbage Symplocarpus foetidus is blooming along the stream. It has such a high metabolic rate, it actually melts the snow and ice around itself. No need for that today.
While on a walk with a group of preschoolers this morning, a honey bee was out looking for early bloomers. I don’t think she found any, but I sure enjoyed seeing her out.
I hope you got out to enjoy and smell the day. I know it won’t last. They’re calling for snow on Saturday, but it is a nice tease knowing nature still remembers how to be warm.

I get enormous satisfaction watching birds at my feeders. I love the spastic antics of Chickadees and Titmice; full of nervous energy. The deliberate, focused eating of Cardinals and House Finches. And the alarming bomb of the Bluejay, who joins the feast with such an exuberant entrance, it often startles the others momentarily, causing an explosion of fluff and feathers before they all settle down at their respective perches.

I don’t have an elaborate feeding system; just two sunflower seed feeders, a thistle feeder, which remains neglected for some reason and a suet feeder. I also have a heated bird bath that up until recently seemed only attractive to the 6 squirrels that share my yard as their territory. I guess, now that every puddle or water collection is frozen, the birds finally have shown interest in my offering.

On a recent glance, I noticed the feeders were suspiciously empty for several minutes. It was a cold day. If we were experiencing a warm day, I’d understand as many birds take advantage of insect hatches that occur when we have warm spells, but this was a cold day. I suspected my neighbor’s cat who seems to delight in stalking our backyard for easy pickings.

I went outside with the intention of chasing this cat out of my yard, but was surprised and admittedly pleased to find another predator.

Sharp-shinned hawk watching bird feeder

An adult (red eyes and horizontal streaking on his breast), Sharp-shinned Hawk, was sitting on the fence that is shared with my cat neighbor.

Sharp-shinned hawks are bird specialists, often catching feathered friends on the wing and eating them. They frequently hunt backyard bird feeding stations for easy prey, not unlike my neighbor’s cat. This is one predator I don’t mind sharing my yard with. Birds are birds. Well, not really, my hackles still go up when the starlings devour the suet, but that’s a different story.