Getting around to sharing that my 2022 New Year Day FOY surprise was minutes out of bed while peeking out the bedroom window (before even had my glasses on)-; a beautiful Mourning Dove. I could see well enough to know this was a special visitor and therefore ran to the other end of the house where my camera resides. It was foraging under the one suet and two tube feeders along with the usual yardbirds (song, white- and golden-crowned sparrows, towhees, Oregon dark-eyed juncos. Despite my no-mess sunflower-chip, hulled millet, and mealworms mix, the sloppy feeders above (including all of the already listed plus goldfinches, pine siskins, Bewick's wren, B-C chickadees, and house finches) were providing plenty of pickings for the ground feeders. Occasional-but-regular visitors throughout the day included a gang of bushtits, red-winged blackbirds, the inevitable starling or 3, and several crows. Two juvenile and one adult bald eagle were observed soaring over the neighborhood as the day went by, as well. A robin came by, one of several noticed lately in the neighborhood. I am hoping, after seeing so many reports here in Tweeters, that a varied thrush might happen by despite our being a few blocks from the nearest wooded area…but maybe!
The dove hung around until late afternoon. Missing on the 1st was an Anna's hummingbird that is almost daily seen visiting our evergreen huckleberry bushes (which were blooming nicely up until the freezing weather arrived-;hope they rebound okay).
Today (the 2nd) we had the largest gathering yet of any daily goldfinch visitation-;approximately 25 perched in the top of our snowball shrub/tree. And several days ago I got a few pics of a handsome male Cassiar's junco…I think I have spotted it a few times since, as well, but it doesn't conveniently hang out in the open with the regulars.

Dee W
Edmonds