Although I'm not bothered so much by time changes now that I don't go to an office every day, the birds don't like Daylight Savings Time, or the lack thereof. Twice a year they get a bit flummoxed by the abrupt change in their routine. This isn't helped much by the light timers I use, which are the typical, cheap ones you find in all the hardware stores. They aren't very precise — either for setting the time of day or for choosing the on and off moments — so it's difficult to coordinate the three lights. The task is made all the more difficult by the location of the timers: one requires climbing under the Finsterium, one requires climbing under Peanut's house, and one requires climbing under the couch reaching behind the couch and unplugging the thing to get to it.

(And here you thought I'd completely changed my life around to accommodate the birds. Don't worry, moving the couch and re-wiring the apartment so I can move the outlets are next on the list.)

Ideally, Bob's light should turn on first, and turn off last. It can take a few days of crawling under things to get it right, though. Last night the Finster's light stayed on far too late, and this morning (I actually changed the timers yesterday, not the day before when the TV told me to) one of the lights went on too early — it was before 6 am so I didn't bother getting up to see which one it was.

So far things are going well: the Finster's light went out a 8:49, Peanut's light went out at 8:56, and Bob's light at 9:33. We'll see how things go in the morning.

The time change did give me the opportunity to discover something about the Finsters. Sunday morning, the start of Daylight Savings Time, but before I'd changed the timers, I woke up early. Since I knew the birds would have to get used to it soon enough, I started preparing hot caffienated beverages before any lights turned on. Since the sun was already starting to come up, I was able to see three tiny Spice Finster heads popping up on top of the second higher nest box on the left, and three tiny Spice Finster bodies flying out of that box. Now, Frank, Earl Grey and Goober were in their usual places, which leaves two missing Finsters.

In fact, Bruce assured me that there were NO Finsters sleeping on top of that left nest box on Saturday night. Which obviously means they can turn invisible.

The things you can learn when you get up early!