Sat, October 3, 2009:

Birds know all about “social networking”.

The show began at 7:15 AM, Oct 3, 2009, just outside my dining room window.  On the suet feeder was a male and female Northern Flicker.  Nothing out of the ordinary, you say.  They were followed by a male and female Yellow Shafted Flicker (the male has a red V on the back of its head and the lower portion of the wings and under side of the tail have yellow markings.)

To my great delight, two male and two female Black Headed Grosbeck arrived which I had not seen since early spring.  There were the usual Towhees checking out the seed supply on the ground, the first ones I had seen in several months.

 I noticed a couple of juvenile robins in the Mountain Ash tree which, surprise, surprise, had dropped all its orange berries last night.  In the past four weeks, I had enjoyed many robins feasting on the berries.  I became aware of pairs of Robins flying through my yard and in and out of surrounding trees and branches.  I had to move to my bedroom window to get a view less restricted by trees!  My best guess was over 20 Robins.  Never had I seen so many at one time and in just a 75 foot radius.  My neighbor saw the same thing and will vouch for me!

I could hardly miss the Pileated Wood pecker as he cautiously investigates and finally goes to the suet feeder!

Then a pair of Morning Doves did their strut across the grass, they mate for life you know.

Within that hour I had 15 varieties of birds to my feeders and close surrounding trees.  I can only estimate but there must have been 55 birds.  There were finches, sparrows, chickadees, Stellar Jays, a couple of European Starlings. Of course there were a few squirrels, too.

That was a new record for my yard.  It was the first night the temperature dropped to 38 and the morning was clear and sunny.   

We humans can take a lesson from the birds about real “social networking!”