Jaci Dawn

I decided this year to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. I have no idea what drove this insanity – oh, yes I do: my new camera and lens. I figured I could count birds and take photos of them through the picture window.

I also figured the Pileated Woodpeckers would make an appearance, but I figured wrong. They stayed absent, as if sensing my desire to include them in my count. So did that elusive female Ruby-crowned Kinglet and the Evening Grosbeaks that I could hear, but never could see.

Still, I had a great time watching the birds in the suet and sunflower seeds. Usually, I have very few birds in the feeder for this event (one of the reasons I have never participated before), but this year my front yard was a Destination Resort or Bird B&B. That’s Bird Bistro & Bath. I served three kinds of suet: an inexpensive grocery store generic peanut-butter suet, a lard-and-meal worm suet that is heavy on meal worms, and a suet laced with meal worms, sunflower seeds and corn kernels. I also have the Niger thistle feeder out and the main feeder is full of un-shelled black-oil sunflower seeds.

The bird bath is filled with rain water and continually refilled naturally over the weekend.

I won’t count the weekend as a disappointment despite the no-shows to my party. I counted a flock of 19 pine siskins in a nearby tree; only one came to the feeder. A Stellar’s jay hung out in the same tree, but also did not come around to the feeder. His cousin, the western Scrub Jay, made a delightful appearance.

The usual party-goers were here: Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Black-capped Chickadee, a few Starlings, a pair of English House Sparrows, the House Finches.

The Song Sparrow always makes a showing this time of year, too.

Dark-eyed Juncos, a pair of Downy Woodpeckers (the female one day and the male the next – neither one posed for photos), and a Northern Flicker also came to the party.

A very Fat Cat American Robin invited his country cousin, the Varied Thrush in. We don’t see Varied Thrush unless there’s a storm moving in and the mountains are snowed in. It is the same size as a robin (the one in the bird bath had just taken a bath and had his feathers all fluffed out), but is a much showier bird.

I was not surprised to see the Varied Thrush hop up into the bird bath. This love for bathing seems to run in the Thrush family (Robins are Thrushes). Little did I know the Varied Thrush would be infinitely more entertaining than the robins.

Nose dive!

Up for air!

Looking as casual as if he’d never done that.

So – yeah. I didn’t expect that photo. I thought only owls could whip their heads around like that. Maybe it is that owls can do it so quickly that they look like they are rotating their head in 360-degrees. But I still did not know that thrushes could twist their heads 180-almost-degrees.

Aside from the acrobatics of the Varied Thrush and the variety of birds in my yard, the weekend was Birding As Usual…

…Which means Captain Jack came by to pirate some of the booty. Captain Jack has been around for several years now and I am still amazed at his ability to navigate with only one good eye. He must have some vision in his left eye because he has his good eye on the feeder, not on the house.

Have a great week – and watch out for birds! (And one-eyed squirrels.)