I envy that beautiful snow. I know you can get too much of a good thing, but we've only had a couple of flurries this year. Everyone gets excited over the slightest flake in in this neck of the woods. Gatlinburg, about 2 hours NE of here is supposed to get 5" tonight. Just cold & drizzly here though. Wonderful view of the snow on the table and bridge. Your photos make me feel like I'm there, Jeanne, you really have a special photography talent. Those crocus are a sure sign of spring, amazing how they bloom when it's still so cold. ~tenderlee

Thank you ladies for the birthday wishes! The tree is a Nyssa sylvatica (aka Black Gum, Sour Gum or Tupelo). I have 9 of them growing on my property that were here when I bought the land. Many smaller ones have popped up since. Only a few of the big ones bear fruit. They like wet or dry woodland soil, will create groves over time, and are native to E. North America. They get non-messy blue fruit in late summer/early fall, neon red or orange fall foilage that stops you in your tracks, need no pruning unless you want to, summer leaves are deep green and glossy, and they are pest free. Down side, you never see them for sale in garden centers, but I've seen them available on-line (mostly native sites) as seedlings. You can start them from seed. (OK, does anybody want seed - if I can get it before the birds do - or maybe a small seedling, as I find them?) They are bird magnets in fruit and bee/hummingbird/nectar insect magnets in bloom. They do not grow exceptionally fast, but the wildlife value is high as a food source, if they turn out to be female trees. FTM - hope you get some great photo ops when the ice closes in - I'm excited for you (and us)! Brenda - lucky you - getting regular visits from a friendly RCKinglet! They are so pretty and like many little birds have a personality, or so it seems. Jean - those holes are huge. I've not seen them before - thanks for posting them. I wonder if any will become nest sites or are they drilling for insects and sap only? I have a pair of RBW that have drilled their nest site into the top of a broken off trunk, of what was once a double trunked oak. The big oak was hit by a small tornado or something that whipped through here a few years back and it wiped out one of the two trunks. A real big tree and so high up I can see their nest hole from afar. P.S. FTM - Yes, I agree - next poster please start a Bird Sightings 3 so it will be easier for Brenda to open quicker until the broadband fairy visits her home! I wanted to put my reply post here, rather than have it look out of context as a first post on a new thread, since I added no new photos. CT

Every spring I feel like the antithesis of "Goodnight Moon" as I individually remark on and greet each new leaf, bud, and bloom. Each fall I find myself bidding each adieu. This little ditty popped into my head as I walked around the garden today... In a great green garden There was a hammock And balloon flowers And a woman- Who lolled out back for hours And there were three little roses and a pile of hoses And two little gayfeather Who liked only fair weather And a little bird nest Filled with Robin Red Breast And a hoe and a spade and other tools mislaid And a giddy old lady sipping lemonade Goodbye green Goodbye beans Goodbye to my summer routine Goodbye warmth And the blooms you bring forth Goodbye roses Goodbye hoses Goodbye gayfeather And goodbye fair weather Goodbye bees And goodbye leaves Goodbye birdÂs nest And goodbye Robin Red Breast Goodbye hoe And goodbye spade Goodbye to all the tools mislaid And goodbye to the giddy old galÂs lemonade Goodbye herbs Goodbye hummingbirds Goodbye summer everywhere.

That's so interesting, because in late fall here we had a similar flock of robins fly onto our crabapple tree, and they stayed and ate crabapples for some time. Also some others went over and ate the sumac fruit at the neighbors'. Then they all took off, I assumed they were on their way south, but then I read here that some robins never migrate. So I can't be very helpful about where your robins might be heading. The whole thing was very surprising to me when it happened here, too. (Actually the way they flew in kind of freaked me out, I had never seen a flock of robins, and they flew in so suddenly.) Also - there was a post earlier (in 2009) - someone witnessed a flock of over 100 robins coming over a hill - you might find it interesting (search "robins"?)