Where does the phrase "Minnesota Nice" come from? I think it comes from snow days and it's an automatic reflex to help each other out of your parking spaces when you are plowed in.
When you're trying to get your car out and the wheels are spinning, people who you have never met or will ever see again will come up and give you a push. When you're walking around the neighborhood and see the same scene you are compelled, as if having an out of body experience to go over and give a push. Where we live, we have what's called a "Snow Emergency". When there is a lot of snow, the Snow Emergency is called and you are only allowed to park in certain areas while they plow the snow out of the way. If you don't move your car, the city will move it for you, as well as giving you a citation and charging you for the tow and storing it in the impound lot. It's not fun. NBB and I decided to try and get a good parking spot early and move the car out of the way before the Snow Emergency was declared.
We were particularly plowed in and required some shoveling to get the car out. Even after a nice guy from our building shoveled us out and tried pushing with Non Birding Bill, our little Saturn still would not budge. I remembered that I had some excess bird seed in the back, so we opened the millet, put it under the tires for a little traction and viola (along with more pushing), out came the Saturn. Woo Hoo. Who knew, millet is great for traction as well as sparrows and juncoes.
Speaking of juncoes, you know these guys are desperate when they are feeding off of a second floor window. Juncoes are almost always feed on the ground, but desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose. I even had a junco hanging off of my Clingers Only feeder, I've never seen a junco cling before. Another case of birds not reading books and being aware of how they are supposed to behave.
The cardinals were not putting up with the starlings. When I was downloading the NovaBird Camera photos, I would get shot after shot of starlings in various states of feeding, then all of them would be gone with one male cardinal sitting on the ledge. Is this the Chuck Norris of birds?
Meanwhile, the starlings tried to thug their way to whatever food they could. The downy and hairy woodpeckers were still able to get in a few nibbles of the suet on the log. I got the weirdest shot of a downy flying away after three starlings descended onto the suet log. It's looks huge and like some weird plane.
After all the snow, we ended with a beautiful sunset. There's kind of a nice clean look to the ally behind our apartment building. Alright, tomorrow, Raptor Center and then off to Eagle Optics.