Subject: Morning Songsters / Strife
Date: Feb 29 09:18:33 2004
From: MaryK - CelloBird at seanet.com


I love this time of year, when the birds start singing and your
spring-is-coming list of evidence burgeons. So far in my backyard I've
heard these songs:

Am. Robin
Song Sparrow
Dk-eyed Junco
Spotted Towhee
House Finch
B-C Chickadee

The Hutton's Vireos out at the Clear Creek Interpretive Center (Silverdale)
have been making lots of racket for a couple of weeks now. Red-winged
Blackbirds out there have been calling a bit, too.

This a.m. I was watching the activity around my feeder. Usually it's pretty
busy w/the DEJU and BCCH. Today, though, there was some brief warfare
between a junco and a chickadee. The BCCH would grab a seed from the feeder
and fly into the tree. The junco would chase after it, and you could see a
little birdy tussle amid the bare branches. This happen five or so times
while I was watching. Hadn't seen that before, at least, not earlier during
the winter. Do you suppose this is some sort of inter-species territory
thing, or??? Fun to watch, whatever it was. The odd thing was that the
junco didn't approach the feeder, just took off after the chickadee after it
had fed.

Good birding,
Mary

Mary Klein
Bremerton WA
CelloBird at seanet.com