Learning Curve?

I've been noticing the past couple of days that the birds using the feeders are starting to use the top sections. This means they have to cling to the wires and mesh. It occured to me that when I first put the feeders up, they all wanted to sit on the lip of the trays, and when they tried to grip the cage or the mesh, they seemed really awkward and uncomfortable, with a lot of wing-fluttering and wobbling. (Except the downy, who just grabbed the mesh and propped himself up with his tail--no problem.) But now they're grabbing onto the mesh/wires and I've seen 3 or 4 birds use a feeder at a time. Seems funny that they would have to learn how to do that, but that seems to be the case. I'm glad they're getting the, er, "hang" of it.

Something is eating the pear and apple pieces I put out. Not sure what, but there are peck marks in them. I was hoping to lure any mockingbirds that might be around. Haven't seen any, but I'm glad something's eating the fruit. Maybe I should try some raisins.

I put some bread crumbs out, too, which is a big hit. I'm putting out brown bread, so it's not totally junk food, but it's funny how they love the bird equivalent of junk food.

I don't have a ton of birds visiting, but I do seem to have a little group of regulars, and maybe if I keep putting food out, the word will get around. I'm planning to get a suet feeder up soon.

It threatened to storm big time all day yesterday, but never did. We got some rain in the evening, with a little thunder, but that was pretty much it. It was terribly windy, though. I had to take the car to the dealer, 2 hours away, to get the Check Light checked out, and the wind made it a real struggle. The actual time there wasn't too bad--the dealer had me out in an hour (yay!), and a friend who lives there was able to meet me for lunch and we had a good talk. I left early, though, because I was sure it was just going to storm like crazy and I'd be driving through a downpour. Never did, though.

I started a new sock in the dealer's waiting room yesterday, using some more of the Apple Pie sock yarn from the stash, Blueberry colorway. I do love this sock yarn. I'm knitting it on US size 1s, and it's a pretty heavy yarn as fingering-weight yarn goes--I'm going to have to get another set of 0s and 00s for the finer yarns like Schaefer Anne and Cascade Heritage.