The day before Thanksgiving I had an Anna show up at my hummingbird feeder
about every 90 minutes or so. Up until now hummingbirds have only made semi
regular or sporadic visits. The day after Thanksgiving I realized that I had
two Annas visiting the feeder. I had watched the one fly to a tree to sit
when the second arrived. Today I have seen FIVE birds!! I think I'll hang
a second feeder on the other balcony so they won't have to shuffle turns.
I've never had this many hummers,even in the summer, I'm just thrilled.
Maybe the last few rain and wind storms have beaten down the last of the
flowers or people have finally taken down their feeders unaware of our Anna
staying around for the winter. Or it could be a combination of both, I have
no idea.

There were 7 Juncos 'ground feeding' through my balcony flower pots, I'm
sure picking up the wayward seed flung from the feeders and maybe a few
insects. The chickadees are on a steady route to the little sunflower tray
in the honeysuckle trellis and I'm filling that twice a day now. Hop-a-Long,
the one legged chickadee will sit on the trellis and watch while I fill the
tray and then fly down to my hand when I offer him seeds. He seems to prefer
being hand fed, a very friendly little fellow. Microwaving the sunflower
seeds seems to have worked well. I haven't had any new ones sprout up in
the container below the seed tray and the birds take them away as fast as
ever. I keep hoping to see a Nuthatch, I had one show last summer for a few
days but haven't seen any since.

The bird bath is still being used for a good splash, this surprises me with
the weather being as nasty as it is. Lots of birds always there to drink, I
just didn't think they'd be bathing in this cold, wet weather

The pine siskin are thick ( 3 dozen or more) and have zeroed in on the suet
feeder. I've also been visited by a Northern Flicker and three Stellar Jays,
a pigeon, house finches ( rosy necks), and goldfinches ( I assume they are
western goldfinches, my neighbor said they were), and lots of the assorted
Little Brown Birds. The newcomer is a squirrel that stretches out from the
railing, hanging on with his toes, grabs hold of the edge of the large
birdfeeder, rests his chin on the tray and hangs on for dear life with one
front foot and scrapes seeds into his mug with the other.

At the moment it's about 4:25pm and getting very dark and I've just looked
up to see two humming birds sitting on the feeder and one perched in the
large potted fuchsia bush. They don't seem to be very territorial as I've
heard people say.

I have heard that there is a very good little book with clear pictures for
identifying the birds in the Seattle/ Puget sound area. Does anyone have
any idea what the name of it could be? Perhaps even make a suggestion of
books that are easy to use to identify the birds that I see here. I'd love
to know just what the Little Brown Birds are other than 'sparrow or wren'.