Saturday morning I was out of the house by 6:00 to head over to Longenbaugh Road to look for the Short-eared Owls that everyone had been seeing there for more than a week. I stood around for 90 minutes in thick fog before accepting that I wasn't going to be lucky.
Sunday evening I headed back to Longenbaugh to see if I would do better at dusk than I had done at dawn the previous day. Once again, no luck. By now I must be just about the only local birder who hasn't managed to see the owls!
Still, I had a little more luck at home on Sunday afternoon, when a cold front resulted in more bird activity in our yards than I've seen for quite a while.
As usual, there were a few House Sparrows and White-winged Doves (below) in our yards. I tend to think of White-winged Doves as pests but they really are rather striking-looking birds.
One of our resident Northern Mockingbirds made regular trips to a suet feeder.
In between visits to the suet feeder, it popped down to the birdbath for quick gulps of water.
I was pleased to see that we still have Red-breasted Nuthatches. They clearly enjoy suet, too.
I wasn't able to get any photos of our winter-resident Ruby-crowned Kinglet but I had a little more success with an Orange-crowned Warbler.
Dee saw an American Goldfinch in our yards more than a week ago but yesterday was the first time I got to see one.
Now that we're in the middle of a cold spell, I'm hoping that our yards will see an increase in bird activity. It would certainly be nice to see more American Goldfinches - particularly if they brought some Pine Sikins with them!
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