Hi, Lydia, Danene and All:

Last January a yellow-shafted flicker showed up at my house. Of course, I
got all excited and jumped online to tell everyone. A few months later the
yellow male and a red-shafted female showed up with 3 young. The female was
"normal," looking like most reds (and they are red here although I love the
idea about checking the color against a Pantone fan!) One male looked like a
red but had a red crescent on the back of his head. The other male looked
like a red but had black mustaches. When I went online about this, there
were lots of great replies from a lot of knowledgeable people on Tweeters
and Inland. There were really informative discussions on hybrids,
crossbreeding, overlapping ranges, etc. If you want to check Tweeters
archives for the period Jan-March (April?) 99 you can see those postings. I
don't know how far back the archives go but you could ask Dan Victor.

Saw my first rough-legged hawk of the year yesterday. It was very obligingly
sitting on a fence post as I drove by (very slowly) and didn't bother to
move. It's the first time I've seen one that closely and in such detail. As
for the rest of the regulars, it's warm enough here (highs in the low 50s)
that my Mt. Chickadees are still up at higher elevations. Haven't see a Mt.
Chickadee since the last cold snap in Sept. All I have are a dozen or so
juncos, house finches, magpies, a couple of black-capped chickadees,
hairies, downies, a few goldfinches, and a couple of red-breasted and
white-breasted nuthatches. All except the juncos are regular year-round
residents in this small valley.

I just checked my FeederWatch records for last year! Boy, is memory a tricky
thing! In checking those records I see that I have the same birds in almost
the same numbers, except for the Mt. Chickadees, with the same general temp
and rain. And here I was thinking it was colder and I had more birds - oh
well, give it a month or so and that WILL be true. :-)

Regards, Joanne
Reardan (Spokane) WA
note new email address - only diff is the first two initials removed
mail to: powell at snapwa.org