Bob Gilreath says the one thing he loves about living up here, is you never know what’s going to visit your bird feeders or walk through your yard. There seem to be plenty of goldfinches making a stop at his feeding station lately, along with redpolls and even a few downy woodpeckers the day he was snapping photos. It was a frigid day when Bob captured these and he remarked that cold days are for shooting birds through the window. He added that even though it’s only the beginning of February, the finches and redpoles are starting to get their spring groove on. I noticed how much more yellow the goldfinch in the 5th photo is.

The bottom photo is a recent visitor to Bob’s backyard also. He didn’t actually visit his feeders, but maybe he was checking out the bird population. Whatever he was doing there, Bob said he was a big, healthy gray fox which was hard to get the scale of his size from the photo.

We join Leslie the Bird Nerd for a lesson on How Birds Survive Winter, which is no doubt the toughest season for our feathered friends here UP North.

Anybody who knows me knew I would love these
pictures. I can't get enough of the birds
that stop by our feeders. Like Bob, we take
most of our pictures from inside through the
double pane window. The Goldfinches have
been plentiful this winter. It's nothing to
see dozens at a time. Lately the redpolls
have joined them. I wish the chickadees
would stick around a little longer but they
grab a seed and fly. I do just love these
pictures. Bob captured them beautifully and
I thank him for sharing them with us. I'm
going to watch the video in a bit. I'm sure
that will be very interesting

I saw the coloring on the goldfinch....YEEHAW!!
Love when that happens!

Hi
Great bird pictures. I especially like the close-ups
in the video. I did already know that birds have
down coats.

Lovely birds.

They don't look angry.