Birds Of A Feather...

 This morning, when I came into the living room, one of our more recent guests was at the feeder. It's a Pine Grosbeak. Such a beautiful colour!

It's really interesting to watch bird behaviour. These Pine Grosbeaks are not particularly skittish....they seem reasonably happy to be watched. Blue Jays, on the other hand, for all that they are REALLY bully-birds, fly off right away when you come to look out the window. Something else I observed this morning: the Blue Jays, who normally chase all the other birds away from the feeder, did not seem inclined to do so when the Grosbeaks were present. Instead, they ate seed that was scattered on the ground (and usually they're the ones who've scattered the seeds trying to get only the peanuts!)  :(

We are very grateful to have lots of Sparrows (and often Junkos) who are "ground feeders". They are usually the ones that clean up the mess made by the Blue Jays.

After watching some bird activity, I headed to my sewing room to get into the Zoom class for the Barn Trail, hosted by Sue at Thimbles & Things. Sue generally starts the class by sharing with us a number of new things that have come into the shop. I get lots of ideas from this, like today....I just might have to get that "Bench Pillows" book :D

The block for this month is really pretty....but I won't be starting it today. I had something else in mind for today.

After the Zoom class, I continued working on the "100 Modern Quilt Blocks" quilt, earmarked as her own by my "chosen" daughter, Abbie. She's decided she'd like cotton fabric for the backing instead of flannel. I still have much work to accomplish before I get to that stage, but I will be heading to TH&TH to pick up my other sewing machine that was in for cleaning, and thought I'd get the necessary fabric for the backing while there.

I managed to get the black frame on all 81 blocks (When I started the quilt, I was thinking that 100 blocks would have made it too big).

While I was working, Jade was standing at the sliding door, "boofing" (a muffled bark almost under her breath, as opposed to a full-out bark). I got up to see what the problem was. I knew it wasn't a squirrel. She usually paws at the glass when one of them is teasing her. It turns out that there were ice-fishers out on the lake. I guess she thinks the space in front of us, even if it's practically across the lake, belongs to us...and she needs to protect it.

By the time it was time to head up to make supper, I had the sashing pieces between the blocks in rows 1 and 2. I'm happy to see this flimsy coming together :)

Now it's time to Zoom with some friends :)

And on that note, I wish you all a very good night!

TTFN