The birds must agree with the weather predictions, as I have had to fill all
my feeders again this afternoon. To discourage squirrel damage to the
feeders, I spread corn on the ground (it works, by the way), and this
afternoon, flocks of house sparrows swarmed all over the corn. Then, out of
the fog and mist, came Mr. Cooper. Swoop, snatch and swing, up onto a
branch of an old cedar tree in my neighbors yard, where he proceeded to
pluck and then eat a female house sparrow. Just glad it wasn't one of my
little juncos.
Today's yard list:
Canada geese (early morning fly-overs from the quarries just east of where I
live)
Cooper's hawk (small - probably male. Hadn't seen one in 4 or 5 months.)
Downy woodpecker (male and female, at suet feeders, and gleaning insects
from the lilac)
Golden-crowned kinglet (nosing around the same lilac bush)
Carolina wren (a pair, of course. They hide out in the tire wells of my
camper under a carport. Cute!)
American robin (50+)
Carolina chickadee (3 or 4)
White-breasted nuthatch (only 1, I think)
American crow (several)
European starling (more than I care to count)
House sparrow (zillions)
House finch (at least 20)
American goldfinch (often 8 or 9, either at the nyger feeder or on the
remaining branches of the butterfly bush near the feeder)
Song sparrow (singing, no less - second day in a row to sing. It feeds on
the ground with the juncos.)
Dark-eyed juncos (several, feeding under the forsythia, which has bloomed
off and on for a couple of weeks - ouch!)
Northern cardinal (at least 3)
16 species on a miserable, wet day. How I love my new window. (Just
finished remodeling my kitchen in Nov., and had a window put in that faces
out onto the back yard. What an improvement - worth the price of the
remodeling job, alone.)
Margaret Bowman
Newark, OH
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