Hi tweeters,

My husband and I moved from Mill Creek to Duvall earlier this month, and I thought it might interest some of you to share some of the differences in feeder birds made by moving 20 miles east from the I-5 corridor. The new property has similar habitat as the old place in terms of being mixed deciduous/coniferous woods at pretty low elevation, but where we are now, northeast of Duvall, it is a lot less densely populated/developed. In terms of wildlife, we have occasional deer and Eastern Cottontail rabbits instead of Eastern Gray Squirrels, though that may not be an improvement with respect to gardening...

The first thing that I really enjoyed was that I put out the same types of feeders we had before: suet, shelled millet/peanuts/sunflower seeds on a platform, hummingbird, and sunflower seed tube feeders, and had customers almost immediately (either the same day or the next). In Mill Creek, it took 2-3 days for birds to even notice the feeders, much less visit them. Here, we had our first visitors to the seed feeders the next day, in the form of an adult male Black-headed Grosbeak, and the following day, the same spot held three males and a female! After putting up the hummingbird feeder, we had a young Rufous that evening, and with the suet feeder it took only a day for a female Hairy Woodpecker to show up.

Another thing I've enjoyed is how the birds are mostly the usual suspects, yet the proportions of them are a bit different. In Mill Creek, Black-headed Grosbeaks were seen occasionally, and even then were very shy. I rarely saw more than one at once, and if I did, one would wait in the tree while the other checked out the feeder. Here, they are the predominant feeder bird: we're getting as many as six on the feeders at once. And they're either mostly males or mostly females/juveniles, so there must be well over a dozen in the immediate area. At one point, I saw a male shuttling suet to two juveniles waiting in a nearby tree - they're really a joy to watch.

Also, in Mill Creek the most regular visitors were flickers, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, and Red-breasted Nuthatches. Although early on, I found a bunch of young chickadees being fed by a parent in some alders near the house, and I hear them constantly, they rarely visit the feeder. I've seen Chestnut-backs and flickers once apiece, and I've seen only one female nuthatch, who drops by at most once a day. (Being my favorite feeder bird, I'm happy to get that one) House finches and Pine Siskins have only started showing up this weekend, which probably owes more to the season. (We were getting lots of house finches in Mill Creek throughout the summer though).

We had a lot of Band-tailed Pigeons visit the platform feeder in Mill Creek. I haven't seen or heard them here, but I was surprised to be getting Mourning Doves. I have rarely seen them west of the Cascades (and then mostly in farmland, not thick woods as we have here), yet they are regular in our driveway, and one of them drops by every evening to grab the seeds under the feeder. I put out some quail/dove feed for him, but he seems to prefer the sunflower seeds dropped by the grosbeaks.

The final (non-bird-related) note is that three days in, I spotted an Aplondontia (Mountain Beaver). No one I mentioned this to (including myself) had even heard of this creature before, but there it was, next to two rabbits that were grazing on our lawn. It is the same shape, but slightly larger, darker, has small pointed pink ears, and no tail. It certainly looked similar to a beaver, and I'm wondering if some of the beaver reports in the area haven't been these guys. In any case, I'm holding out hope that he'll return for a photo.

The list of the 31 yard birds so far (in order they were first seen, feeder birds = (F) ):
American Robin - lots
Swainson's Thrush - lots heard calling, 3-4 seen including 1 juv
Song Sparrow (F) - 2 adults, 4 juvs
Black-capped Chickadee (F) - 2 adults, 3 juvs
Osprey - 1 flyover (twice), have a nest down the road
Red-tailed Hawk - 1 wrestling pair flyover
American Crow - 1 regular
Cedar Waxwing - 2 regulars hanging around maples/cedars
Mourning Dove (F) - 1 at feeder
Red Crossbill - 1 flock flyover
Black-headed Grosbeak (F) - at least 4-5 adult males, lots of females and juveniles
Stellar's Jay (F) - 1 adult, 2 juveniles
Western Tanager - 1 male
Downy Woodpecker (F) - 1
Orange-crowned Warbler - 1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher - 1
Hairy Woodpecker (F) - 1 female, 1 juv male
Brown Creeper - 1
Spotted Towhee (F) - 2 adults, 1 juvenile
Winter Wren - 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch (F) - 1 female
American Goldfinch (F) - 1 male, 1 female
Rufous Hummingbird (F) - 2 contentious juveniles
Chestnut-backed Chickadee (F) - 1
Barn Swallow - 1 flyover
House Finch (F) - 1 adult male, 1 juv male, 3 females
Northern Flicker (F) - 1 female
Pine Siskin (F) - 1 at feeder, flyover by a handful
Ring-necked Pheasant - 1
Bushtit - flock of 15 +/-
Turkey Vulture - 1 flyover
Regards,
Christine Vadai
Duvall, WA
christinevadai at sprynet.com