Stormy Weather

It started out as a beautiful day here in Cottonwood, AZ but after lunch the dark clouds started rolling in. We’ve heard some thunder, felt a few rain drops and had some gusty wind but it’s still in the high 60’s so it’s not too bad although it was in the 80‘s all weekend. I’m glad I did my long walk this morning!

We bought a bird feeder last week. Once last week and then again this morning we got up and found the feeder was completely empty … it had been half full when we went in for the evening. Obviously some critter is managing to get to it. Dave put the feeder out toward the end of a dead branch hoping it would be too fragile for anything to climb out on. We haven’t seen any squirrels, mostly we have seen skunks but I didn’t think skunks were tree climbers. Dave did see a raccoon last night, maybe it is the culprit. I don’t mind buying seed for the little birds but the critter that is eating the seed at night is pretty piggy about it. I guess we will have to take it down at night, put it in a storage bin and that critter will have to find it’s midnight snack elsewhere!

Photos
Top: our stormy looking sky today
Right: the new bird feeder
Below
1. Cheye in our "yard" with the dark clouds. You can also see the bird feeder hanging on the dead branch- the left side of the photo.
2. & 3. Photos Dave took while out hiking in the hills. The first one is a bird on a wire fence the second is a cactus growing out of a white rock.