On Thu, 12 Oct 1995, Jacquelyn Owens wrote
> In my yard the bushtits also ignore the suet. They spend some time in the
> Japanese maple, but most of the time they hang out in a small maple tree
> near the house. (Really good bugs, I guess. Spiders like the same tree.)
>
> Jackie Owens >Seattle, WA >(73rd and 49th NE)

Go figure. They devour suet in our yard, a few blocks north (86th & 41st).
Plenty of deciduous trees, which the bushtits also work over when they come
through. Maybe some of them just don't *like* suet. I know I don't.

By the way, are bushtit flocks just stochastic aggregations of individuals
who happen to live in the same neighborhood, or is there more to it than
that? (cf. extended family groups a la some social mammals such as the
highly advanced Collared Peccary).

> PS -- On another thread, I've seen wintering Merlins in my yard, but not
> ones in the summer.

A female Merlin frequents our yard in the winter. This am a male and a
female perched within a foot of one another for several minutes on a snag
behind our house. They took off together, but the male (*a* male, anyway)
perched alone in a different tree a short while later. Just a chance
encounter, or could they be a pair?

David Wright
dwright at u.washington.edu