This morning there was a crowd of birds around the feeder. In waves they blew in and out from the limited perching areas, a feathery contrast to the swinging, brick red feeder, the softly falling snow and the row of green pines behind. It struck me that they looked like shoppers entering and exiting the mall in Christmas time frenzy.

And they were as varied as mall shoppers too. The sparrows of course dominated the numbers, rounded, brown and tan and white, hopping, pecking and chirping both on the edge and in the snow below the feeder.

Chickadees in their dress of black and blue and white, clung to the places where others couldn’t hold, their cheerful voices brightening the sounds at the scene. They’d wait their turn, grab a seed and dart off to some private place to eat. And in a moment they’d rejoin the mob.

Junkos, streamlined and slate covered with almost white undersides, seemed to like to wade in the snow on the patio deck beneath their chirping friends. Just two rosy-breasted house wrens were apparent in the throng. Almost blending with the sparrows, they’d shoulder their way in for a turn.

But the cardinals and the jays were the ones to add color. When the big blue, gray and white jays sailed in, everyone else stood aside for a minute. Less dominant, the cardinals all seemed to possess individual personalities, as varied as the shades of their colors. One brilliant red male was almost a jay in nature while one green and brick female was content to sit among the smaller birds to break her seeds. Six or eight of them in all, brightened the feathered massed commotion.

Just once a member of the blackbird or grackle family, I really don’t know which, flew in and walked around for a moment. Apparently not finding anything to its liking the singular bird flew away.

This gathering of feathered energy was like a mob of shoppers. One sparrow seemed always to want the seed another had selected and rudely pecked and argued with his peers. Is this what they mean by a “pecking order?” And the jays and cardinals, intent on the sunflower seeds, scattered and threw aside the smaller tidbits. Again, like shoppers rummaging stacks of shirts, blouses or sweaters for the proper sizes and never bothering to put the unwanted ones back.

And then the neighborhood’s biggest fox squirrel bounded across the yard, reached the bottom of the supporting pole and quickly pulled himself up to the feeder. It was the cracked corn he relished and so pushed almost everything else aside. The birds, naturally, left and most dropped into the snow below. They waited for a kind of “clearance sale” as the seeds rained down.

To avoid these furry intrusions I had placed a second feeder under a pine, stocking it with hickory nuts and corn. But it was as if the squirrel enjoyed “lording it” over the birds. Even the handfuls of seeds I had added to the second feeder had not detained the bushy-tails habit of spreading chaos and seeds around the patio. And so the birds and he have learned to co-exist, taking turns.

But how had all these creatures learned so quickly of the backyard table we had spread? No announcements were made or catalogs sent. And in the wintertime the incidental presence of these neighborhood citizens is not apparent—perhaps a “little bird told them!”

In any case the food left at the feeder is a source of warmth and life for birds and maybe squirrels.

I do know that these feeders are a joy to maintain and watch as well, and the happy turmoil, typical of the Christmas season, can last in your backyard all winter long.