Over the past week both Band-tailed Pigeons and Evening Grosbeaks have been daily visitors to my feeders. Some days just 2 or 3 but had more than 30 Band-tails and 50 Evening Grosbeaks at times. Talk about going through seed - 10 pounds of Millet/Milo/Cracked Corn and 20 pounds of Black Oil Sunflower in just 5 days. Yesterday and today I had big flyovers of TV's headed south. I counted 101 over 5 hours yesterday and 79 today.

My Stellers Jay count is now up to 30 at one time with 5-6 Scrubs added to the mix. I feed them whole raw peanuts and it is comical watching birds trying to stuff 2 or 3 or 4 into their mouth and crop before flying away, stashing, and returning as quickly as possible. The tan colored Stellers that visited for a week this summer was in today's group - he is hauntingly beautiful.

The lack of water in streams is bringing some interesting visitors to the yard including a number of Douglas Squirrels and Chipmunks, 2 Coyotes, LOTS of deer (3 beautiful bucks yesterday) and best of all a Bobcat that I have seen 5 times and likely has been here more often. I usually turn off the pump for the artificial small cascade on Halloween, but if the dry continues I may just leave it on until a good freeze is predicted.

Rob

Rob Conway
Camas, WA
45.58?N 122.44?W - elevation 310 ft.
robin_birder at hotmail.com