Scattered Seed

I slept in past my 7:45 weekend alarm this morning. I chose that time, for Feederwatch days, but it is still 2 weeks till the Feederwatch season starts, and it seemed a nice morning to just stay in bed and be warm.

When I did get up, about an hour later, the birds were making their appearance. At one point, during a flurry of activity, I noticed a larger bird than my usual deck visitors, bright yellow. Two evening grosbeaks had landed on the hopper feeder, and spent a bit of time there, coming and going. I had never seen one, and this was a male and female pair.

My efforts to make the environment inviting to different species has paid off this past year – corn cobs for the blue jays, peanuts for the chickadees, woodpeckers, nuthatches, and titmice (and squirrels). The ground feeder brings the sparrows, mourning doves, juncos, and crows. The nyjer bag attracts the goldfinches. My summer nectar feeder and the hanging fuschia plant was a success in enticing the hummingbirds. The nest boxes have proven to bring the tree swallows each spring.

The occasional visitor is exciting, as the evening grosbeaks were, but the test will be to see if they will return. When I first started backyard birdwatching, I could rely on just a few species to keep returning. I remember when the first tree swallow landed, the first mockingbird. I wondered if I would ever see them again, and now I can count on them. Our trees, plants, and neighborhood are evolving, so I expect to see an even greater variety of birds in the months to come.

It smells like Halloween. I asked Morgan if she could smell it yet, and she said no, but it definitely smells like Halloween here. Oddly, my flowers out front are still blooming. My little rosebush opened another bud today, the marigolds keeping multiplying, a few tomatoes ripen each day. It is mid-October, and we haven’t had our first frost yet. Yet, change is coming I can tell. The first bird of the morning was a white-crowned sparrow, on a southern migration. They appear here for about a week in the spring on their way further north. This afternoon, the first junco of the season showed up below the willows. I think of them as winter birds, pecking through the snow. The maple that always turns a bright orange out front, has a ways to go yet, but as I come up the circle every afternoon, there is more color. The furnace is set to run, the storm windows are down, my rice bag makes its nightly spin in the microwave before warming my feet under the cool sheets. Despite a few warm days yet to come, the cold is soon to set in, and the birds seem to agree with me.