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[dellaroux]

I wonder what the blackcaps' food preferences are at feeders?

If I get some, I'll let you know. But so far it's all been bog standard: blue tits, great tits, coal tits, a couple of robins, a wren, and a bull finch.

The good news is that we had a positive stream of tits using the new feeder today. They were also a lot less nervous about using it than they were about the last one.

I'm getting this feeling that we're in the phony war period . . . the squizzels haven't yet worked out what they're going to try.

Has Spork invited himself over for the view yet?  (Sorry, Spork, but it was just there for the picking)

I believe Spork is otherwise occupied at the moment...

[anthroid]

I hear the pileated every morning when I'm walking the dog but have yet to see it again.  Perhaps with the big winter storm being predicted for the region it will deign to show itself at my suet feeder.

[pollinate]

A non-Red Tailed Hawk (too small) just flew by my office window.  Its pretty dim outside and I couldn't see any identifying marks, drat it!

[aristotelian]

Kestrel?

[barred_owl]

With the big winter storm that many of us experienced in one way or another, any bird reports to share? 

We had a Red-bellied Woodpecker at our suet feeder yesterday.  He was hanging on for dear life, though, since the wind was twirling the basket around pretty vigorously.  The other usual visitors have been on hand, too--chickadees, titmice, juncos, nuthatches--and draining the feeder steadily.

[pollinate]

Kestrel?

No, too large.  I looked carefully through Sibley and couldn't narrow it down.  Hopefully it will come back.

Birdfeeder activity yesterday evening:  up to 15 Chipping Sparrows, 4 Cardinals (1 male, 3 f/j), 6 White-throated Sparrows, 1 Brown Thrasher, at least 3 Yellow-rumped Warblers (they're too zippy to get good counts), a few Chickadees & Titmice, 1 Downy Woodpecker, 1 (I think I have at least three) Brown-headed Nuthatch.

This morning the Y-rW's going from the elevated birdbath to the ground-level one clued me in that I needed to go break some ice.

[anthroid]

Mainly I've been getting chickadees and sparrows in the last few days, though I spied a goldfinch this morning.  I suspect I'll see more finches soon--the thistle sock is still quite full though one bird feeder is pretty empty (a second one, which hasn't been touched for weeks, is finally being tapped--both have songbird food rather than simply thistle).

[barred_owl]

On the way home from grocery shopping today, we took our usual detour through snooty rich lakeside neighborhood, and slowed down to take a look out at the lake to see if there were any ducks, etc. out there.  There were!  Unfortunately, my binoculars (which I always keep in the car) kept fogging up, and our only vantage point was from a tiny gap between two of the mansions.  So, I didn't get a good ID on the duck-types, but I think it might have been a small flock of Buffleheads.  We had to move on when a resident of one of said mansions peered out the window at us, probably wondering what those people in the little car were doing looking at their house through binoculars.

Some day, when I hit the lottery, I will have a house on a lake and be able to watch ducks without worrying whether someone is going to call the cops on me...sigh...   Oh, and if I hit the lottery, I'm also buying binoculars that don't fog up!  Like these.

[anthroid]

Cool binocs!

There was a downy woodpecker at my suet block this morning.  Very cool.

[pollinate]

Yesterday afternoon there were at least 30 Chipping Sparrows eating.  I also saw a Mockingbird and a pair of House Finches for the first time in a while.  Other than that, not much change, although I realized that I'd left Carolina Wrens and Mourning Doves off the first list.

[mouseman]

The feeder is back up.  Got the house sparrows back, but also a pair of juncos.  Had to chase the fox squirrel away and move the feeder further down the branch.

[wegie]

I think <crosses fingers> that we can declare victory in the squirrel wars. They've stuck a paw though and grabbed stuff, but that's the limit. Absolutely nothing compared to the thousand squirrel raids that the previous feeder had to endure.

Unfortunately, a pair of starlings have discovered the suet feeder. Where two are, two thousand will undoubtedly follow :-(

We've now acquired a chaffinch. He's too portly to get through the gaps in the bars, so just hoovers up the stuff on the deck beneath the seed feeder. He's also quite happy to compete with the squirrels for the remains.

[pollinate]

Yesterday afternoon I counted around 20 Mourning Doves busy eating.  A minute or so later they all tore out of there in a noisy panic.  I looked out in time to see a blur streak over the bird feeding area and into a neighbors back yard, at about twice the speed of the doves.  Unfortunately, that was all I could see because of a vine that hasn't yet died back and a tall hedge.  I sincerely hope it caught dinner, but couldn't see any unequivocal evidence of that.

[lerasmus]

Driving in rural delaware, we saw a pair of bald eagles in a field - the male had either just killed a medium-sized mammal or had found a recently deceased carcass, and was tearing it apart with his beak. Now if I could only convince the eagle to perch in the tree outside my office window...

[biomancer]

The hairy woodpecker that frequents my suet feeder and raids the chickadees' stashes has figured out that I fill the feeders.  I puttered around the yard yesterday refilling all my feeders, and it stayed low in its favorite tree, watching me the whole time, and didn't even flinch when I refilled the suet feeder about two feet from it.  There was a waxwing in one of the ornamental cherry trees.  The fruit doesn't seem to have fermented much yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing drunken waxwings in that tree in the future.

So far today.... lots of chickadees, a couple dark-eyed juncos, titmice, goldfinches, what I think might have been a purple finch, a couple nuthatches, and a handful of LBJs.  They're not happy with the freezing rain and are hanging out in the bushes in front of my living room window, providing an excellent distraction from the grading that I ought to be doing.