A Sad April :(

The first half of April has been a bit of a bummer.  While a decline in feeder activity in Spring is understandable (due to the increasing abundance of natural food sources), it's difficult to see certain species leave.  Townsend's Warblers are completely gone now.  And it also appears that the Varied Thrushes have left as well.  The Rufous Hummingbirds that I saw just a few weeks ago have been MIA and I don't even see Anna's Hummers every day anymore.  Heck, I hardly see more than three Juncos at a time now!


Varied Thrush (female).  One of the last seen this Spring.

Fortunately, I am still seeing (and more often hearing) Ruby-crowned Kinglets every day.  Bushtits are still in high abundance, although in relatively small flocks (2-6).  A male/female pair of Myrtle Warblers continue to "hover-glean" from the suet basket.  I saw the first Western Scrub Jay at my feeders since this past Winter.  In contrast to the overall decrease in other species, I've actually seen an increase of Downy Woodpeckers.  A female, apparently tired of wating for the squirrel to get off of the suet basket yesterday morning, flew over to my sunflower tube feeder, took out a seed, flew up into the adjacent tree, and hammered it open like a Nuthatch.  It repeated this twice.  I'd never seen a woodpecker do that before, althogh it makes sense, given the shape of their bill.  A Western Screech-owl has also been occasionally heard outside at night (10 pm or later).

And I have seen one new species in our yard over the past two weeks: an Orange-crowned Warbler.  I originally saw one (briefly) last weekend and didn't know what it was, but have seen two of them foraging through the neighbor's tree this weekend.  The West Coast race is a lot more yellow than the interior race in the linked photo and I had originally thought it was a female Yellow Warbler.  However, the faint dark line across the eye ruled out that possibility.

While purchasing seed at Wal-Mart a week and a half ago, I said what the hey and picked up an $8 wren house.  Some people don't like House Wrens because they sometimes destroy nests and eggs elsewhere in the neighborhood, but I miss the little guys.  So, we'll see what happens.  A pair of Black-capped Chickadees checked it out last weekend, but seemingly couldn't figure out how to enter the hole.

• Posted at Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:01 PM
• In General Category | Permalink