One of the charms of the acrobatic little chestnut-backed chickadees is that they like to put their feet together and stab at a seed (which I often can’t see) held between them. Fearless little things, marvels the klutz watching them risking hammer toes from the other side of the window.
Not sure how I missed seeing it before, probably because they don’t have to with hulled sunflowers, but, scrub jays do it, too. I think there are some olives left in that tree. So it was that I got to watch a jay standing on a long 2×2″ that runs along in front of it over at that part of the yard, the bird’s long talons wrapped around the board as that big beak tore away at its prize.
Only–the 2×2 wasn’t completely steady. It moved, the jay lurched, it did a wheelbarrel roll onto its blue head and then its side and scrambled up fast and grabbed its meal to make sure no thieving squirrel had taken off with it. And then stole a peek at me: you didn’t see that.
Gotcha.