Just to add to the parade of reports: Yes, lots of activity around the
feeder the last few days. At least four or five Varied Thrushes, many
Juncos, Pine Siskins, both chickadees, nuthatches, and a few robins. The
Siskins spend part of the day feeding on alder seeds on the trees, and then
come down to the feeders now and then. Long Lake has been frozen over, of
course, so we don't have the usual show of ducks and the huge flock of Coots
that usually entertains us. When they're out, we get regular fly-bys from
the local eagles, sometimes right in front of our windows. We learned an
interesting ecology lesson recently; some of the alders right at the lake
edge are leaning over the water, and last year a couple of them fell over
into the lake, leaving their crowns half out of the water. At first, Lois
wanted to get them removed--oops, what looked like a Cooper's Hawk just
swooped through and went down the shore a way!--anyway, at first Lois wanted
to get them removed, but they've become perches for the Green Herons to hunt
from, and Lois pointed out that the Coots are using them for shelter from
hunting eagles. A few days ago, one of the eagles was hovering madly over
them while a lot of scared Coots huddled underneath where they were safe;
the eagle had to give up and retire to its favorite perch on one of the very
tall Doug Firs. So fallen trees have specific roles in creating habitats
and influencing feeding patterns. Lots of fun here.

Burt Guttman guttmanb at evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 360-456-8447
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S.E., Olympia 98503



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20040107/0e5549a2/attachment.htm