Winter Birds

When we moved into our house two years ago, we noticed two empty bird feeders mounted on a post by the back deck.  They stayed empty until a couple months ago . . .

. . . when I decided to finally put food in them.  I liked the idea of watching beautiful birds all winter while the rest of nature went to sleep for a while. 

The food attracted a variety of birds, including this acrobatic little woodpecker.

I didn't recognize many of our little visitors, so I looked them up online and printed reference pictures to post by our back door.  It's been fun for our family to get to know our feathered neighbors . . .

. . . including this "dark-eyed junco."  I had never seen or heard of these little grey birds before this winter, but now I see them on our deck all the time.  I read somewhere that they are nicknamed "snowbirds" because they show up in our area around the time of the first snowfall, and then head north at the end of winter.  We'll enjoy them while we can!