Cold Birds

The poor birds were COLD and HUNGRY this morning (-11 when I got to work; probably colder at 7 AM out the other end of town where it's all open)! They must've used up a lot of energy keeping warm last night. I had gotten up early, so Toby and I went out to fill feeders. Two little pine siskins were clinging to the thistle feeder. They refused to move, pecking slowly at the seeds within. I stood there, a little more than a foot away and waited for them to fly off (siskins are usually pretty skittish birds), but no dice. I reached into the bag of seed and held up my hand next to the birds - I could've touched them if I moved my hand a half inch closer. One took off, but the other still hung on. Finally, it's stress levels must've gone into overdrive and it, too, flew off. I filled the feeder with the remaining thistle seed, and added more sunflower seed to the sunflower seed feeders, peanuts to the peanut feeders. Although it was subzero out, standing there in the shelter of the house and facing the morning sun it wasn't too bad - but once out in the wind it turned pretty brutal.