My wife and I are feeding the local birds as a way to get started in avian
ID. We see EVENING GROSBEAK, AMERICAN ROBIN, PINE SISKIN, SPOTTED TWOHEE,
CHESTNUT BACKED CHICKADEE & HOUSE FINCH on a daily basis. Lately we have a
new visitor, a SHARP SHINNED HAWK, who I've come to think of as the
neighborhood assassin. It has been a passing visitor for about three months
that we have noticed but this weekend he seems to have moved in permanently.
I say he with reservations. Despite several close looks with time to
compare the view in the binocs to Sibley we got as far as an adult bird.
Have not a clue how to sex it. Any help there would be appreciated.
Anyway, Saturday morning we had the usual 30+ grosbeeks feeding and then
roosting in the leafless alders at the back of the property. Something
came in very quickly and made a couple of fast circles around the roost
trees and then snatched a grosbeak which was slow to take off. Our
assassin was making himself at home. (I say assassin in a joking way. He is
doing what mother nature designed him to do. Thinning out the weaklings and
keeping the local population healthy and on it's toes.) About an hour later
this bird actually lit on the rail around the back deck under the Siskin
feeders. This put it about ten feet from where I was sitting. I sat very
still and was rewarded with about three minutes of close up viewing. It
then went to the edge of the property where it maintained a vigil over the
yard feeders and the local runoff pond behind the property. We get a few
mallards and some Canada's down there. Three hours later it again appeared
on the deck inspecting something on a piece of ground which I could not see.
It finally hopped down and grabbed an apparently dead grosbeak which I had
not seen and departed. This bird was seen in various observations points
around the area the rest of the weekend. I'm curious to see how it's
presence changes the feeding habits of the local birds.
We also had a pair of PILEATED WOODPECKERS and a small one that looks to me
like Sibley's picture of an ACORN WOODPECKER. Is this reasonable for this
area? I did find a couple of filbert's stuffed into the crevasses of a
large and very soft cedar stump.
One of the things we enjoy is the ability to get within about ten feet of a
grosbeak on the feeders and two to three feet of the siskins.
Unfortunately my old Bushnell binocs won't focus closer than about twenty
feet. Time to make use of all the info supplied lately by the folks doing
serious optics research. My wallet is already crying.

Good birding to you all,
Steve Aubert
Environmental Services Unit
King County Dept. of Natural Resources
322 W. Ewing St.
Seattle, WA. 98119-1507
Phone: 206-684-2351
Cell Phone: 206-696-0784
Fax: 206-684-2395
email: steve.aubert at metrokc.gov