8" of snow on the ground, not a cloud in the sky and it's 4 below this morning!
Noticed the peacocks won't fly or try to as their wingtips hit the snow when they try to take off. About 40 of roosted under shrubbery last  night. Ripe pickings for the coyotes...got too many anyway.

Dave

Dave,

And I thought it was cold at 15 at our place this morning.  This is abnormally cold for us, but I suppose your cold is typical for this time of the year.

Don't think I'd want 40+ peacocks running around my place!  A family about a 1/4 mile from our place must have over a dozen or so of those screaming birds.  They certainly are not a quiet bird.

Dave
Are the peacocks there a wild species or do you raise them?

Cold weather hasn't hit us yet. This morning is 46 degrees with 40 to 55 MPH winds. Sure to blow the cold air into western Ohio by morning. Had a little rain overnight and maybe a dusting of show by afternoon.

                                  Gene

Here in the shadow of Lake Ontario, the temp. dropped into the high 20's F last evening. Starting around midnight snow fell to about 2 inches along with the increasing wind.  By 3 A.M. the wind raised the temp. to above 32 and snow changed to rain/slush. We are now in the high 30's.  High for today is forecast for 46, so hopefully the snow will be gone before the temp. starts to fall again.  I went out and shoveled 30 feet of walk after dawn to make sure it melts down clean.  The rained on snow was about the same as picking up water soaked lead.  I do not need much of that.  Puff Puff.  The wind is forecast to gust to 50 mph plus at least through Thursday.

Sunday I wound up one of the JD model H's and took a short ride around the back lot just to hear it run.  It looks like that will not happen again for a while.

Charlie V.

Well, its 11 below this morning. The snow really crunches when you walk on it. As for the birds, about 40 or so years ago my mother imported some from California and with the wild ones around here the population grew. Last summer I invited friends over for a peacock shoot. In two days 55 of them left as coyote bait. There is still 40 or so around here. I do take mercy on them and supplement grain when we are in conditions such as now.

I had always imagined peacocks normally lived in warmer climates, so surprised they thrive in that cold weather. Used to be a lot of pheasants (the ring neck variety) around here in western Ohio, but the blizzard we had in January 1978 killed almost all of them along with the bob white quail. Attempts to repopulate with pen raised stock were mostly futile as they were too tame to avoid the foxes and hawks. The quail are nonexistant now and to hear a pheasant crow is reason to pause and listen. Near where I lived 20 years ago the DNR released 2 coveys of quail of 16 each and a week later only feathers remained.

                Gene

Western Ohio had a morning temperature of 46 degrees. Wind has increased all day with gusts to 46 MPH and now at 5:00pm it is down to 26 degrees. Just had a few rain sprinkles and by mid afternoon had a couple small snow squalls. Appears the precip will miss us this time..
Spent the afternoon in the shop putting new brakes on the Jeep Cherokee. Nice and cozy with the LP furnace going. Gonna hibernate this evening and keep the wood stove going.

                    Gene

Whoa!!!. Just checked the latest weather history on Weather bug and now shows a maximum wind gust of 62 MPH in Bellefontaine, Ohio. At least the leaves are finally blowing out of the yard.

                           Gene

Ditto here on the Pheasants, Gene.  When I was young, Pheasant hunting used to be my favorite hunting event.  Now, as you say, we may hear a Ring neck crow once or twice a year.
I think those are escapees from private game farms or stocked by sportsman.  I have been through three English Setters with no good bird population to work them on.

Charlie V.

We used to have a lot of pheasants here, I remember the limit was 3 roosters and one hen. Then came the people and with them came the house cats. There are no pheasants left and the mountain quail are slowly disappearing also.

Pheasants are pretty much non existent around our place.  In recent years you might see or hear one a couple times during the year, but I don't remember seeing a single one this year.

Quail are another matter.  We've got a ton of them around our place the and the neighbors.  But we feed them along with a lot of other birds.  We put out millet everyday for the quail and other ground feeders.  We  have several black oil sunflower seed feeders and go through almost a gallon of those seeds a day. Plus a couple of niger (thistle seed) feeders for the finches.  Plus a few humming bird feeders which we keep going year round as we have hummers that stay year round.

So we have plenty of birds.  Also have several great horned owls that stay around our place and have some young ones about every year.  Been also seeing a Coopers hawk hang around our feeders as it is looking for a bird to eat.

This week has been really cold for us.  Had a couple mornings this week where it was 8 or 9f, and this morning it was a warm 10f!  Hopefully this weekend the weather is supposed to warm up and next week be back to the 40's and our usual winter rain.

Don't know yet how the last three nights of super cold weather has affected our birds as it is dark when I leave for work and gets dark shortly after I return, so don't get to see them during the day.