November 26, 2007

I arrived home after dark last Wednesday, and have been swept up in the Thanksgiving weekend activities ever since, so no dedicated birding alone in the woods and field. However, during dogwalks and assorted farmwork I've seen a few interesting birds.

Yesterday, while I walked alone with the dogs, a delightful flock of nine bluebirds were flitting and singing around the treetops at the "homesite" (no house has ever been built there, but it's our dream location on the property.) From a hilltop vantage point, (I think it was Friday late afternoon,) I tried to determine if any bluebirds were going to roost in any of our "bluebird" boxes (in which which tree swallows more commonly nest.) Nope! They must be roosting in some of the numerous local woopecker excavations.

- A brief OT but (I hope) interesting anecdote: I spend a great deal of time in southern California working, at a location within a mile of one of the recent burns. Bluebirds (western) have been seen, post-fire, scoping out and even lining new roosts in the adjacent unburned areas; sort of like weird autumn "nesting" behavior. -

Yesterday afternoon (back at home) I was doing support duty for my engineer brother-in-law, who was inside the crawlspace above our kitchen trying to diagnose and fix some ceiling light issues. This meant sitting on the back porch roof outside the vent-entryway for four hours, and running up and down the ladder and steps to check this or that light or throw this or that breaker. Anyway, I took my binoculars up to my vantage point, and spent a good amount of my "standing-by" time watching the feeders and farmyard. At 3:05 a female Cooper's hawk flew behind the horse barn and got most of the cursed house sparrows up. I didn't see if she caught any. 

Feeders: Nothing too unusual at the feeders: one junco, one white-crowned, and two white-throated kept the watching interesting. I didn't see any tree sparrows at the feeders. The large flock of mostly house sparrows and goldfinches frequently startled and re-grouped, reacting to the specter of a large primate with binoculars on the nearby porch roof. 

I would guess that a half dozen or more white-breated nuthatches are making regular incursions to the suet and sunflower seeds. One robust individual (if you can call any nuthatch "robust") seems to rule the top of the utility pole, where the feeder is mounted, as a seed-hatching site.

A few titmice and chickadees, but not many.

Only a couple downy woodpeckers, one male one female, and at different times.

Saturday morning there were three grackles on and about the feeders, somewhat unusual. The large and wandering blackbird flocks are predominantly euro-starlings, or I guess it's "common starlings" now (?).

All in all, I'd say we have pretty typical late-autumn birds. After being away for two and a half weeks that's fine by me!

Bob Evans
Geologist, etc.
Hopewell Township, Muskingum County
DeLorme 70 A1

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