We were at our place in the hills above the Aeneas Valley this last weekend two
weeks after our previous visit. At the last visit, the Vesper and Chipping
Sparrow families were still bunching with a number of groups of fifty or more
birds. I have seen the flocks get up into three or four hundred birds in
previous years. The currant bushes were still full of their red fruit as well.
When we arrived this last weekend all but one or two sparrows here and there
were gone and the currant bushes were empty.

I wish we had been there at the peak. A feeding frenzy gets going early in the
morning with the sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, one or two other warblers.
RC Kinglets, a few flycatchers, bluebirds, nuthatches and chickadees that is
quite something to watch. We must have just missed it this year.

We did have a Canyon Wren, which while not particularly rare in the Okanogan,
was a first for our property which is rangeland and woods on a gentle slope,
somewhat out of habitat for them.

Ed Swan
swanbarn at concentric.net