Today in Olympia in a day of heavy rain and wind, our front yard is full of
a guild of birds. Including a female Blackheaded Grosbeak, who parked herself
in the mock orange right by our big picture window and used that large seed
cracking beak to work through the seed heads. She stayed for about 10 minutes
and came back later. I got a good look at her: she had pretty downy undertail
coverts which suggests a first year bird. While these Grosbeaks are in the neighborhood in
late spring & summer, this is pretty late- shouldn't she have migrated south by now?
Is the warmer than usual weather a factor, perhaps?


Janet Partlow