Finches, Downies, and Jays - Oh my!

The past couple of weeks have been dominated by Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches, Lesser Goldfinches, and Scrub Jays.  I've never seen as many of these species before.  There is a Downy at the suet basket or birdbath literally every 10 or 15 minutes.  Aren't these guys supposed to eat insects during the summer?  In addition to the Lesser Goldfinches, House Finches have been bringing their offspring to the feeders maybe 7 or 8 times a day.  And as if the recent explosion of Scrub Jays to the suet and peanut feeders wasn't enough, they brought their juveniles to the yard last week.  To quote Bill Cowher, "That was a special moment."


A juvenile Scrub Jay enjoys a "special moment" in the evening sun.



We're going to start charging the Downies rent soon.


Juvenile Red-breasted Nuthatches can be seen foraging through the pine trees all day.

I also purchased a new high-capacity, squirrel- and weather-proof dome feeder recently and hung it outside the kitchen window.  This is part of my plan to gradually transfer birds to the more secluded and less busy east side of the house.  This gives them more than one general area to feed/bathe and the area is also less visible to the neighborhood cats.  The House Finches have already taken to the feeder, although it's so close to the window that it's really easy to frighten them away.  A thistle tube feeder was also placed at the other end of the deck just recently and has already been visited by Lesser Goldfinches.


Female House Finch at the new feeder.  They seem to prefer the sunflower hearts to the shelled variety.

The only real downer recently is that the baby Bushtits have left the nest while we were away on vacation and we haven't seen them around since.  Oh well.  I'm sure that they'll be back this winter.

• Posted at Monday, June 18, 2007 11:01 PM
• In General Category | Permalink