Hi, all:

Yesterday afternoon, while working in the kitchen, I saw something heavy
land in the lilac bush outside the window. This is a very old lilac and
more like a 10' tall tree with very thick leaves (leaving?
leafing?)...almost impossible to see through from one side to the other.
I peered and squinted but couldn't see anything. I turned almost away
from the window and, out of the corner of my eye, saw a juvie red-winged
blackbird land next to the suet. The suet is about 5 ft in front of the
window. Faster than it takes to read this a Sharpie swooped under the
tree from the other side, stuck the bird face on and dropped immedately
to the ground with it (below my vision line) and was gone. I went out to
see if there were any telltale signs but not even a feather! About an
hour later my granddaughter ran into my room hollering about the big bird
outside the front window. The Sharpie was sitting right out in the open,
on the ground! It was about 20 feet outside the front window and sat
there for about 2 or 3 minutes. What great looks!

Just a note on hummers; there were 2 juvenile rufous males at the one
feeder I still have up - one was almost completely into adult plumage and
the other was about halfway there. I haven't seen any others for a couple
of days.

Regards, Joanne
Reardan (Spokane) WA
mailto: jopowell2 at juno.com