Our Yard

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It has been fairly quiet in our yards lately. We still get a good selection birds but not in the numbers that we usually see at this time of year. Unfortunately, there is an exception: House Sparrows. Rather than the occasional bird or pair of these birds that we normally see, there are now often half-a-dozen at our feeders. I hope they are not driving away some of our native birds!

Our most frequent visitors are Carolina Chickadees. They visit our feeders every minute or two throughout the day.

A couple of Orange-crowned Warblers are very regular visitors, too.

A Ruby-crowned Kinglet which comes to our suet feeders several times a day is always a welcome sight.

A male and female Downy Woodpecker appear to take turns at two other suet feeders. They usually defend "their" feeders from other birds, and so the other day I was surprised to see a Downy and a Yellow-rumped Warbler both eating from the same feeder without any conflict.

Perhaps like the rest of us the Downys were trying to get into the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, the Yellow-rumped doesn't seem to know about paying forward. It constantly chases away Orange-crowned Warblers and other Yellow-rumpeds. The other way it chased off the only American Goldfinch that has reached our yards so far this year.
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