What Color Is Your Wump Today?

A blog friend who I stopped by to visit today asked, "When it is cold outside, what is your favorite thing to do?" Well, I spend a lot of time looking out the windows. At lunch on Monday, Richard and I were together at the counter fixing our food and we saw an armadillo come out of the brush on one side of our driveway and move purposefully across and into the brush on the other side. There was still some snow on the ground  -- this was before yet another 5 inches or so fell on Monday night. We wondered how the creature is surviving. Most people here feel the only good armadillo is a dead armadillo - much like some of the folk where Weaver comes from feel about moles (we have moles too, though). Armadillos can really tear up a yard.

But when I am working, what I mostly see are the birds, and chipmunks when it is warmer. I keep one eye on the computer and one eye out the window, watching what goes on at the bird feeder. I sometimes wonder who got the privilege of assigning names to the birds I see.  I am especially amused by the name given to this little bird ...

yellow-rumped warbler...

It does indeed have a bright patch of yellow there at its rump.

Suppose we were designated by the color of our rumps? I guess today I'd be a "magenta-rumped geezer" seeing as that is the color of the sweats I am wearing.

These winter visitors do not eat seeds with the rest of the birds, but they began coming to the feeder several years ago, attracted to the high-energy stuff I put in the suet feeders.

A real treat this year has been the frequent visits of this little bird, the brown creeper, which is very well camouflaged.

It lives here year round, but in all the years I have been watching birds, I have only seen one a few times. It too is aptly named. It clings to the tree and goes round and round as it creeps up the trunk. This is the first year it has gotten brave enough to come this close to the house.