Juncos are here year round (Bellevue-Eastgate), and going crazy with all
the singing and courtship stuff, tails spread flailing and such right now,
bright dry sunshine this mid-day moment must be further stimulation. At
least what I DON'T have to depend on anymore is that one male, that one
wretched male, that for years, every March into April took a liking to the right
side side-mirror on the car. That irritating thoughtless dirty wretch gone
finally along with all the pooping on the car! Even when it was a
horrible problem, I tried turning the mirror inward up flush with the window glass
and that didn't work, he'd squeeze himself in between the mirror and the
window, couldn't even turn around, and still scratch the glass and poop the
place up. Talk about one desperately narcissistic Oregon Junco! This went
beyond just a bird seeing himself and attacking a suspect aggressor's
image. The only thing I could do to stop it was cap the mirror with an empty
Dryer's ice cream container, much to the amusement of my neighbors. He then
just moved to my neighbor's two houses down the street and cut loose on
his car. Later, and after I gave up ice cream for Lent, I just used a
plastic bag over the mirror and tied it secure until the season mercifully
passed. Sure, I could drive around with an ice cream jug or a plastic bag on my
side view mirror, so what, it maybe looked weird and I didn't really need
the mirror that much anyway.

Back to my sick and dying Pine Siskin problem, only one more since I last
posted about this, death toll now 16 since mid-February, and they're still
around. Why, don't know really. I shut down feeding for the season,
disinfected and cleaned everything up nearly a month ago, and still they come.
There's nothing here to eat or to become salmonella-infected on. Just to
make sure, I made the rounds again Saturday afternoon, not once but twice,
scrubbed and disinfected the feeder, plus twice at the base on the ground
and concrete slab brush scrubbing it twice with a disinfectant solution and
hosing everything off, not a scrap remains, yet the Siskins are still here.
Not so much there, just in and amongst the lower shrubbery, and so it is
again today although I haven't noted any particularly sickly looking ones at
the moment.

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA