As previously mentioned, I put out a pair of 3D printed bird feeders the other day.

…They have become extremely popular with the local ravenous hordes of rabbling squawkers. Apparently there’s a new routine: Every morning just before sunrise, and every afternoon a little before sunset, a flock of approximately eleventy bazillion cowbirds descends on our front yard and completely cleans me out of seed. I’ve only had these feeders up for three days and this has already happened six times.

Here’s one separated from the rabble. He’s sitting on the lower prong of my shepherd’s hook, which is a popular staging spot for anyone preparing to dive in and insert themselves into the slightest gap that presents itself at the trough. Full size here.

There’s no way to miss it when the gang turns up. Feeding time gets extremely boisterous:

These are just the ones who managed to horn in on the feeder itself. Five or maybe six of the little buggers can fit on each feeder’s platform…

…And another couple of hundred swam around on the ground right below ensuring that nothing getting flung off of the feeder goes to waste. The rest festoon the telephone wires overhead and glower disapprovingly, waiting for their turn.

Then any random thing in the neighborhood makes a noise and the entire flock blasts off.

(I’ve found that some clients don’t render videos that are inserted in a post directly. If you can’t see the one above, you can try viewing it separately here. Random fun fact: That seventeen second clip is two hundred and thirty megabytes as it comes straight out of my camera. Ffmpeg helpfully squashes it down via h265 into 2.35 megabytes which is frankly remarkable.)