Thursday, January 9, 2025

The gray squirrels usually start arriving in the front yard after sunrise. This morning the sky was gray and still windy, so the arrival today might have been when they decided to venture out of their cozy tree nests. By 7:30 AM there were 9 gray squirrels. About half stayed under the feeders peacefully eating sunflower seeds. The others, usually in twos, sometimes threes, chased each other across the yard, up and down trees, and here and there.

Around 9:00, I counted 6 female and 3 male purple finches and around noon, 10 female and 10 male house finches. And maybe a dozen goldfinches. It’s a finch year.

Around mid-morning a female yellow-bellied sapsucker landed in the crabapple and spent some time eating one and then another shriveled crabapple. Her cardinal red head feathers looked bright and fresh, while her wing weathers look to still be molting. Her breast and belly were a soft yellow.

A lone tree sparrow joined the juncos for a time. And 6 bluebirds visited now and then throughout the day. Around 3:15 a (or the same one) Cooper’s hawk zoomed in, flushed a junco from our perennial bed, gave aerial chase around the yard and into the bayberry bush where it captured the little fella. They got to eat too.