Rob, Could your greenish gray "warbler" have been an Orange-Crowned?
I too am starting to see want look like winter mixed flocks drifting through, although most of these are now migrating. They're a treat partly because they are so unpredictable!
-Rolan

Rob Sandelin <floriferous at msn.com> wrote:
I went out to the worm bin right before dinner, then ran back home for the
binos as there was a huge mass of birds out. It was quite a spectacle, I
guess two hundred but it was impossible to count as the birds flitting and
danced through the bushes. After about 30 minutes I had spotted Townsends,
Yellow, Wilsons, Yellow-rumped, Black throated gray warblers, Cedar
Waxwings, Red breasted sapsuckers, downy and hairy woodpeckers and numerous
unidentified yellowish birds with greenish-gray backs which acted like
warblers, constantly moving. They were in the bushes all around me, in the
tree tops above me, flying right by my face at times. At one point I just
closed my eyes and listened to the birds, imaging how they see three
dimensional space. listening to calls all around me. I opened my eyes and a
black-throated gray was actively foraging in the alder an arms length away.

There was a brief commotion as part of the flock suddenly moved and shifted
and many birds called. A fast moving shadow behind the tree was probably a
hawk grabbing dinner. It reminded me of the sound a crowd at a ball game
makes when there is a sudden spectacular play, the volume suddenly rises, is
high for a moment, then subsides again. A collected "ohhhhh" as a comrade is
lost.

There was a persistent call coming from my porch and I realized it was my
wife calling me that dinner was ready. She had apparently been calling for
some time.

This was the largest concentration of birds I have seen here at home, and
one of those intimate experiences with birds that left me humming inside.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com


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Rolan Nelson
Burley, WA
rnbuffle at yahoo.com

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