I have had a new family of red-breasted nuthatches in my yard on Cooper
Point the past couple of weeks. About an hour ago I was watering a
large elderberry shrub along my front fence, squatting down on the
ground almost under the shrub with the hose going high, just enjoying
the sun. A nuthatch came to the wood fence, just about a yard away,
tooting his horn, and then another came to the fence. They were very
close. I remained motionless and one flew to my head, plainly intending
to land, and brushed its wings against my cheeks as it turned and flew
back to the fence, apparently realizing I wasn't very good landing
material. Then a third one came. (One looked to be an adult female and
the other two juveniles based on their paler plumage.) As I sat
crouched there by the shrub, all three began foraging in the straw
around the shrub's trunk, almost looking like they were trying to get
wet on the wet straw. It certainly seemed that the noise of the water
was attractive to them. I thought I might scare them off, but I used my
fingers to divert some of the stream to make a splishy-splashy fall of
droplets on the straw. Well, they immediately responded by coming and
wiggling around in the drops and bathing, literally 30" from my hand on
the hose, bumping up against each other as they danced in and out of the
droplets, shaking their little tails and wings. They must have done
this for at least 10 minutes and my legs were asleep, but I couldn't
move because it was such a magical and transfixing sight. Even when I
would move to adjust to get better sprinkles, they stayed and kept on
jumping in and out of the water. Finally a tooting came from the forest
across the street and they tooted back and then followed the sound.

The Steller's jays are taking advantage of the sun to do their own
bathing. They like to sun on the heap of dried grass clippings and two
were sunning together today, looking for all the world like jay skins
laying out to dry. A pair of crows has been anting on the anthill
across the street on the edge of the forest--fascinating to watch.

Wow, gotta love the sun when it shines in Oly.

Angela Percival
Olympia, WA
Angela at stillwatersci dot com