I was down in Redlands, CA before Christmas visiting family and managed
to spend a few minutes on two mornings in my sister's backyard with a
pair of binoculars. The habitat was suburban with palm trees, pines and
gum trees around. Across the road was an old orange grove that is now
mostly an open field. In the short time I watched I saw an Anna's
hummingbird, a pair or two of scrub jays, dozens of cedar waxwings,
several western bluebirds, a mockingbird, a couple of Wilson's warblers
(?), and of course crows, a house finch and house sparrows. When these birds
seemed unusually quiet, I noticed a kestrel across the road.

On Christmas Day we returned to Seattle (Wallingford) where all I usually
see in my yard (not much shrubbery) is house sparrows, crows, starlings,
and sometimes some house finches. In October my wife had bought me a
hanging suet feeder, which, for lack of anyplace else to easily hang it, I
hung outside the side door over the deck. Until the snow, I had never seen
a bird touch it, which I supposed was due to some combination of being too
close to the house and the fact that we have four cats (none of whom has
caught a bird in at least several years). While the snow was here,
though, the suet feeder was visited a few times by a flock of bushtits,
making them my last birds of '96 and first of '97.

Will they come back to the feeder now that the snow has melted, or was it
an act of snowbound desperation? I haven't seen them so far, but I'm
still hopeful. Do other people have suet feeders that are ignored? Is it
the cats? The proximity to the house? The lack of nearby cover? Any
suggestions?

Paul Talbert
paul at sparky.fhcrc.org