Nothing spectacular, just a new yard-bird for me today (Sun 5 Dec) -- a 1st winter-plumage Golden-crowned Sparrow was tagging along with the usual crowd of mature and 1st winter White-crowns that help us tend our organic garden. It's great to take a moment and spy on them up close with the binocs so I can watch them gobble up varmints like the big fat cutworm I watched one find and eat today. Others working up and down the edge of the yard during the few minutes I was able to look were Juncos, BC Chickadees, and Towhees. Speaking of which, my question is this: I love to have Towhees in the yard, one of my favorite birds, and where I used to live we had an acre of natural woods and undergrowth, so we had scads of them because of the natural environment and never had to put out food or anything especially to attract them. Now I'm in a more suburban area and am wondering if anyone has suggestions on what draws Towhees to "adopt" a yard and stick around? I'm working on a native plant section and we have 9 blueberry and several Evergreen Huckleberry bushes planted here and there, but we are still working on getting moved in and making it all "ours," so figure this is a good time to find out what might be especially attractive to them in an urban neighborhood (beyond good cover, which we have and are improving). I'm not doing feeders so far, but am curious all the same if anybody has noticed what they are attracted to on a feeder, if anything. Thanks!

Dee Warnock
Edmonds, WA
beachdee at hotmail.com