A rare visitor

I feed the birds sunflower seed during the winter, and we have so many different species in the yard right now: Black-capped Chickadees, White-crowned Sparrows, Towhees, Juncos, Northern Flicker, assorted finches and the Scrub Jay, a new migrant. Up until recently, their range was south of Portland. Scrubs (although pretty birds) are aggressive and supposedly pushing out our handsome resident Stellars Jay. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a Stellars since last summer. 

My two bunnies survived the winter are still hopping around the front yard. We have dozens of fat squirrels up to assorted mischief, and an unknown someone dug a tunnel and made his home under the shed.  I suspect a possum, but he keeps to himself.  Raccoons I'm sure still make their nightly rounds while we're asleep, along with busy moles, rodents and other assorted riff-raff.  I love it. Quite a wild menagerie for a small city yard, not to mention, a carnivore's smorgasbord. 

I was in the kitchen cooking yesterday and noticed the feeder suddenly swing around wildly.  It's supposedly squirrel proof, but that doesn't keep them from trying. But it was not squirrel, it was a Red-tailed Hawk strike. He missed, and sat sulking in the plum tree for a minute before flying away. That sure cleared out the airspace.  We see large hawks occasionally along the freeways in Western Washington, but it is an extremely rare sighting in suburban neighborhoods.

This is the parade of storms headed our way.  These are relatively warm and juicy storms-- windy and wet in the lowlands, snow only in the mountains. It's been a mild winter so far.  I know it's weird to say there's a whiff of spring in the air, but there's already a whiff of spring in the air. The bulbs are starting to poke through the mulch.

Have a good weekend.