A Brown Creeper spirals ascents up the willow while a
Golden-crowned Kinglet closely inspects the outer branches.

Three Rufous Hummers contend for access to the feeder, ah,
two at once but ever so briefly.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees swarm around the black oil seed
and suet. Curiously, there are often lots of CB Chickadees,
but only occasionally Back-capped, and then only two at a
time.

A Red-breasted Nuthatch zooms in like a marauding bandit to
sieze a seed and zoom away, all in less than three seconds.
They don't usually hang around long unless they're after
suet. Coming home one time, there was a Nuthatch hanging
from a branch by one leg, head down, near the feeder. I went
in, put the groceries away, looked out the window, and it
was still there, motionless. I watched for a bit more, then
just as I was turning to go remove the body, thinking it had
died somehow in that strange position, it raised its head,
looked around, zipped over to the feeder, grabbed a seed and
flew off. Was it nuthatch-napping?

A Mourning Dove whistles to a perch in the dogwwod after
feeding on the ground and sipping at the bird bath.

Stellar Jays stab out big chunks of suet and set the feeders
swaying wildlly.

A Spotted Towhee hops into the bath and splashes about for a
while. I think it's the same one which, as a juvenile last
spring, would spash about in the bath for half an hour at a
time while its parents fed it. The parent would bring
something, the juvenile would hop to the edge, take the
food, then resume splashing.

A chipmunk scours the ground along with Juncoes and Song
Sparrows for any seed dropped or spilled from the feeders.

Purple Finches take up posts on the oil seed tube feeder,
calmly eating while Chickadees flutter in and out, trying to
scare the Finches away.

Suddenly they're all gone. I look but don't see any predators.

Rob Cash
Camano Island