Titmouse

If pigs could fly.

...they would be the piggy birds that come to our feeder. And by feeder I mean trough. It is more like a trough of sunflower seeds to them. Dainty looking creatures they may be, but the daily rituals that go on here are far from a dainty affair.

By the dozens they come. Gold finches, sparrows, nutthatches, wrens, cardinals, juncos, blue jays, chickadees, woodpeckers, doves, titmice and more. No matter their differences in appearance and temperence they come to feed. And if any get in their way they bicker and squabble, trick and decieve.

It is no African savanna, but the pecking order here is as tooth and claw as any. Survival of the fittest at the sunflower trough. Survival through winters long dark chill.

And so we help them multiply and come back year after year to dazzle and entertain. Laughing and hopping rambunciously through the branches. Our own funny pig-pen of birds.