Hello Tweets,

Yesterday our front yard was visited by a Yellow-rumped Warbler,which came readily to our suet feeders. The bird often came with a female Townsend's Warbler,which has been overwintering in our yard all winter long. We also have a male Townsend's Warbler that comes to our suet feeders off and on,but not on a regular basis like the female bird. The suet feeders that have the most activity in our front yard are located near a large Rhododendron bush that attracts many birds that use it for safety and shelter. It is good to have the bush close to our feeders since they can often jump back and forth from the bush to our feeders The Yellow-rumped Warbler like the Townsend's Warbler often hovered in the air like a hummingbird to get a morsel of suet,but also used the perches on the feeder too. We have had Yellow-rumped Warblers in our yard many times during migration,but never during the winter and using our suet! 95% of our resident and winter birds use our homemade peanut butter suet,which we transfer over during the summer months to a store bough suet cake that has insects in it since our homemade mixture melts in warm temperatures.

We have placed many photos taken yesterday from both the Yellow-rumped and Townsend's Warbler onto our website,which can be accessed at the following link: http://www.pbase.com/godwit/yardbirds/ . These photos were all taken from our windows,but a few were taken just outside at a safe distance.

It is always a pleasure to see our yard birds and we keep a daily log of what species we see including our Anna's Hummingbirds that are always a highlight to see everyday! Recently, our Anna's Hummingbird have been very active in our yard and have also been seen performing breeding behavior. We also in addition to our yard hummingbird feeders have a feeder for the Anna's Hummingbirds at the Adriana Hess Audubon Center in University Place,which we see on every visit there. We also have a group of 6-8 Band-tailed Pigeons that come on a daily basis to our backyard patio for offerings of crushed peanuts. In many ways we enjoy our yard birds just as much as going birding in the field!


Sincerely,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit513 at msn.com