I stopped to buy a sandwich and then visit world famous author, Jean Richmond, this afternoon.  I had not seen her since last year and she has had a White-throated Sparrow and a Townsend's Warbler in her yard.  I told her that I was there to see the birds--not her--and we laughed over that one.  We shared our stories of the first two weeks of 2018 and watched her birds while I ate lunch.

Well, the sparrow has not been showing for a couple of days, and the warbler did not show while I was there.

But we did have some nice birds, including an amazingly brilliant male Spotted Towhee coming to seeds by her bushes and a Bewick's Wren coming for suet.  She still has Lesser Goldfinches, House Finches and Pine Siskins at the thistle, while there were plenty of Juncos and both White- and Golden-crowned Sparrows and a Fox Sparrow which bathed.  Two Downy Woodpeckers kept chasing each other trying to be at the suet feeder, but the Chickadees were not bothered by that.  We did chase a Scrub Jay from the suet feeder; it would grab a whole ball of that stuff and be gone; so I did not have much trouble with that.

For a while we wondered if there might be a Cooper's Hawk around as the birds were not showing in the yard.  They eventually did, so I guess there was not.

Hugh B. Harvey
Walnut Creek