Hi Tweets,

>To our surprised, we had our first male Varied Thrush for the season.I keep
>record on our yard birds, and in the last seven years the earliest was 23th
>of October. We have a high concentration here in Fircrest where i live. At
>one time we had 16 at one time in my yard. But this date today make me
>wonder, if this means we going to have a verry cold winter with also early
>snow?

Not necessarily, Ruth. About ten years ago, birds showed up on average a few
days early in Vancouver BC, and we had a *very* early snow that year in the
third week of October. Boy, talk about yer doom-laden predictions about the
imminent winter! And *what* a winter it was: warm (three consectuive days in
mid-December of light frost overnight--that was it for freezing the entire
winter), dry (first time in living memory that *no* snow fell on the local
mountains all winter, and very little rain) and sunny (broke sunshine
records for December and January). Most of the winter was like a sunny day
in mid-October, yet if we had predicated our behavior on the early signs in
late Octov, the early birds and snow, I'm sure we'd have all gone to Mexico
or started chopping up the furniture for emergency firewood.

>Did any birders had Varied Thrushes in there yard yet?

Not in my yard, Ruth, but one in the--well, 'yard' is kind of a weak word to
describe it--the grounds of the Cecil Green Mansion at UBC on Sunday, and a
few in the neighborhood over the last couple of days, quietly humming and
buzzing away.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)