Saturday morning bird activity

Here's the activity report from the Phactor's kitchen table.  It's been a very cold week but today is a warm snap, up to 20 F, and the forecast is for more snow and then the temperature is to fall again.  Suffice it to say everyone is stoking up at the feeders, 2 with sunflower fruits, 1 filled with peanuts, and one with thistle fruits (hey, both sunflowers and thistles are achenes). OK let's see who's feeding. The usual crowd is here: cardinals, house finches, gold finches, juncos, white-throated sparrows, blue jays, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, tufted titmouse, chickadees, Carolina wrens, nuthatches, morning doves.  Well, not bad for a 15 min bird round up. Oh, yes and 8 fox squirrels easting their corn and spilled bird food and wishing they could climb into the feeders. 
It has been quite a few years since this much snow has accumulated, and lots of low growing shrubs are just mounds of white. No evidence of the lily pond exists, and hopefully the bubble stone and compressor are keeping things aerobic until a melt finally comes. Quite a bit of bun-bun bark feeding is probably being hidden from view, but things are tough enough that at night bun-buns actually appear under the bird feeders looking for a bit of food, that is whatever bits are left by the birds and squirrels.

Fun fall freeloaders

Our urban estate attracts a lot of wildlife because it's got cover, water, and food, some natural and some supplied by TPP's garden, and some offered up because we're good hosts.  This time of year is quite busy especially for our avian wildlife because transients combine with natives.  A mixed flock of finches, mostly gold, some house, and maybe a pine siskin or two, have descended upon us, a ravenous horde that can empty a feeder in a day.  Standard nuthatches, Carolina wrens, and brown creepers are year around residents, but two or three pairs of red-breasted nuthatches have arrived within the last couple of days and they are very busy birds unable to wait even long enough for you to put seed in their feeder.  The first juncos have arrived and will remain all winter, but the white-throat sparrows they arrived with will just be passing through.  Chickadees, pairs of downy woodpeckers, and even red-bellied woodpeckers are also being quite active.  For a few rare moments virtually all of these were visible from our kitchen table at once, and maybe even a cardinal or two, and then they all scatter when a blue jay screams its arrival.  And lurking around all this little bird activity are our local Cooper's hawks, one of which was chasing squirrels around one of our oak trees.  Go hawk, go!  Although they are indoor pets, the kitty girls watch all of this like excited kids in front of a TV.