My feeders have also been sparcely attended recently. I doubt it is
because of predators. The finches and jays have been strangely scarce, and
the chickadees have been coming around less often (though more frequently
now that this sunny one minute/rainy the next pattern has been in place).

I live in a heavily suburban area (Totem Lake area of Kirkland). I gotta
wonder where the birds go if they're dodging the weather. We really
haven't gotten the extent of precipitation and wind as areas north or south
of here over the last few weeks.

-----Original Message-----
From: MBlanchrd at aol.com [SMTP:MBlanchrd at aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 1998 7:42 PM
To: TWEETERS at u.washington.edu
Subject: Birds and "the storm"

Hi, Tweeters,

Late last week my feeder birds vanished. ALL of my house finches, pine
siskins, even the stellar's jays...stopped coming to my feeders. The only
birds who stuck around were the juncos, and of course the pigs with wings,
the
mourning doves.

I wondered, salmonella? No, I keep my feeders clean, the ground
underneath
it, too.
Was my feed bad? Moldy? It looked okay. Predators? I have a healthy helping
of
merlins, kestrels, harriers..but they've always been here, too.

At the same time the entire Puget Sound region was being battered by high
winds, rain, sideways at time, heavy most of the time, hail, etc. The
newspapers were telling us how bad it was going to be, and down here south
of
Olympia, it was.
My feeders were sideways more often than not. No problem, though, as the
feed
was nowhere in them, nor were my birds.

Well well well..yesterday dawned, still windy and rainy.....but my birds
are
back. All of them, plus a few purple finches that blew in from somewhere.
Lucky me, as I started the backyard bird survey yesterday. I was worried
that
my data sheets would show mourning doves and juncos. Oh wow, really exotic
stuff...

Has anyone else seen such a reaction? Did my birds decide to hunker down in
cover for a week?? (there's not much cover around my feeders, being that I
live on prairie.....). Am I the only one who had their birds vanish for a
week, or is this common reaction to bad weather?? I've been feeding birds
for
years and years, never saw this sort of reaction before..
Michelle