Catkins

Female Catkin

Male Catkin

The Catkins are flowers that grow on the Alder tree.  These flowers often appear before the leaves do.  You might see butterflies feeding on the catkins and leaves.

Alder is a hardwood and can be used to make furniture, guitars, and cabinets.  The wood of some alder species is also used to smoke salmon and other foods.

Did you know:  Alder catkins provide an early source

of pollen for bees, especially honeybees.

Hiking Buddy

Black-capped Chickadee

We love it when they hang out

with us on our hiking trails!!

My First Winter

It's not hard to tell it's this lil juvenile's first winter, and maybe a little more practice on his landing skills is needed in the snow, but he "got the peanut"!!

Evening Grosbeaks

This large flock of Evening Grosbeaks visit here on a daily basis.  They know the platform feeder very well.  Although they do just fine on their own eating the buds of maple, willow, oak and elm trees, to name a few, we enjoy offering them some sunflower seeds during the winter.  They also drink maple sap by breaking off small maple twigs.

We sprinkled some seeds on the hard

packed snow for the rest of the flock!

As you can see, it was freezing rain when I captured these

images, but that didn't stop either of us!!