We have had a lot of mail returned since our move to the countryside. But
the Evening Grosbeaks who have been showing up in tiny numbers on rare
occasions this winter, have just landed in very large numbers. And they
found the feeders right away. The nice thing is, there is so much for them
to eat in the forest itself. My Black headed Grosbeaks are doing well it
seems, and the Towhees are not only nesting in the brush pile that was
meant to be burned for a bon fire, but they are under our deck nesting, as
well as the junco pair.
The brush pile is also host to a bunny family now, and I hesitate to put
things like my mint, Bee Balm, and other such things into the garden, I
don't know what they like, and I don't know what the deer like yet, but I
don't want to find out the hard way that bee balm is a favorite.
So we have a lot of the major players here, Three families of Purple
Finch, Two Black headed families so far, the woodpeckers are busy on all
the feed in the forest, and do not care for my suet cakes, Both Coopers and
one time a Sharpie have made visits to the feeders.
My friends gave me a birthday party and brought all kinds of plants for
wildlife, so I've lots of planting to do. I just need a list of what NOT
to feed my deer. We even have had an elk in the woods, and I don't want to
even think about them showing up...

NO CASSINS Vireo has ever shown up, much to my dismay. But I have not
walked the back five acres since our return from South Africa, to see who
is there....

Happy hunting...(Mark also got me a hunting blind that is perfect for
photography Now if I could just get rid of the cold and sit outside in
the blind...I might get some work done...
The flickr account below doesn't have all my South Africa photos at all,
just a few. On one range in an undisclosed location we found two White
Rhino females with young, one about three weeks old, and the other about
two months old. The one with the three week old, had her big sister to
help mom, and they would stand back to back, or butt to butt, to block the
little one, but he would still slip around them and stare at us. We were
with the main man there, and he was excited about this new one, as it was
the first siting. Also had three Secretary birds in total that I got to
see, I cannot say I did very well on photographing them. But I had a
longtime birder and volunteer who was the dad of our friends who took us
out. He really helped me adjust to shooting in the african sun. So
eventually I will get these all done and add more stories. It was a
wonderful place, altho socially there is much suffering and things are way
behind the US when it comes to many of the serious issues they are
facing....

Vicki Biltz
Buckley, WA 98321
vickibiltz at gmail.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saw-whets_new/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20150505/e9014703/attachment.htm