Outdoors

THEY'RE HEEERE

All day today the Boreal chickadees and Carolina chickadees have been calling, and I saw one of the latter in the branches of the sassafrass tree it lived in last year.

The cold front that came in from the north brought them along, and they are now setting up their winter turf in our area.

I will see them all winter at my feeder, along with their buddies the Tufted Titmouse and Black-crested Titmouse.  They travel in crowds.

But it's only August!!

This must be what the crickets warned me about 6 weeks ago.  The earlier the crickets try to get into my house, the earlier will be the first cold spell.  The bigger the number of crickets that try to get into my house, the more cold days there will be.  So the invasion only lasted a week.  So that means as mild a winter as we've had a mild summer -- and it really has been mild, especially compared to 2012.

My local meteorologist, if he's reading this, is shaking his head.

© Patricia Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved