Carolyn

My current space is not huge and is located near a city park with mixed evergreens & deciduous trees about a half mile from a river. My back garden borders a steep slope with invasive Himalayan blackberry but that still provides cover for many birds as well as raccoons & cotton tails . As a result there are a number of birds that fly by, over, and thru my garden.  I’m trying to have a mix of native and other bird & pollinator species . I try to garden pesticide free.  Many of the “usual” birds in my garden have become comfortable having me around. I’m working towards a more sustainable and nature friendly mix of plants.

I was lucky to go on an owl prowl at night in Seward Park, Seattle. We heard 2 types of owls but didn’t see any. Our park guide took us to the base of a butcher tree & dissected some owl pellets which were remarkable. The contents were mostly indigestible parts of mice & voles so I was really surprised to hear about fish eating owls & also the primarily insect diets of the smallest owls.

When I was preteen some birder friends with large acreage would show us various birds when we visited them. Once Harry showed os a fairly developed owlet that he took from the nest and replaced. He was wearing heavy leather gloves. About five years ago our family was visiting in Edinburgh Scotland where naturalists had two rescued owls outside of a Scottish National Heritage shop. For five pounds you could hold the largest European owl (Great Grey, maybe). I was able to stroke its breast feathers - so soft! And had my picture taken with it, a highlight of my trip. It was both educational & a fund raiser for the bird group.

# 1.  My larger garden and bird feeders are on the east side of my house.  Looking east in the early morning or a bright overcast day it's often hard to see colors so I am forced to pay careful attention to silhouettes which is a real challenge with finches except for the Pine Sisken which is the smallest and often likes to feed upside down.  The Northern flicker and Downy woodpecker are easy because they are the largest and smallest of the woodpeckers.  (The Pileated is larger but has a shape all its own.)  I've learned to recognize the Downy by the size of its bill in relationship to the diameter of the head, almost more easily done when it's a silhouette.   #4. One of my favorite birds is the Chickadee of which I have two types:  Black capped and Chesnut backed.  Both have black caps and chin patches under their beaks.  A white V area spreads from the beak to the back of the cheek, only I've notieced that a few have a curved line on the top side of the "V".  By reading up on them for this assignment I learned that that is an Eastern trait as is  buffy yellowish undersides as opposed to the brownish undersides of the western Black caps so our area in the Pacific Northwest has a mixture of Blackcaps. The Chesnut backed look like they're wearing a rust colored vest.  Both tend to flit and fly fairly rapidly from branch to feeder and back around the branches (not on the ground). They only take one seed at a time and then peck at it daintily on their perch.

I have been feeder watching in Washington State many years but most of them east of the Cascade Mountain range.  Now I'm in the Seattle area and I'm having to learn new birds and new songs so I am taking the classes to improve my skills.  Some of my favorite birds in Spokane were Pygmy Nuthatches which fledged their young for several summers in a birch snag I left standing in my garden and the California Quail who were so comical, especially in snow.  Now I am enamored with Pileated Woodpeckers  and Bewick's Wrens  (pronounced like the Buick car, I learned).  My first love is gardening so I try to make my garden as welcoming as I can and have attracted many different birds that way.  The wonderful pictures inspire me to take the time to try for some good photographs.  My biggest bird  thrill since I moved was to see a Western Tanager.