Greetings,

Today while house sitting a friend’s house with my girlfriend, I basically stayed in all day due to the inclement weather of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. This meant my exposure to any and all birds was limited to the feeders present. This however, wasn’t as bad as expected as it yielded a few nice surprises in the form of year birds. Not too surprising of a tick was House Finch as it was just a matter of time, however a Hairy Woodpecker made nice use of the suet blocks present and was my second year tick on the day. It however did not stay too long and was later replaced with a pair of Downy Woodpeckers and a male Red-bellied which allowed for a few nice photo opportunities. The third year bird tick on the day was a 1st year White-crowned Sparrow that briefly made an appearance near the studio door before hopping off and flying out of site. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a photo of this bird which would have been nice.

Other than those mentioned above, the typical suite of birds to be expected were found, including a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk that rocketed through the feeder area scattering the flock. It was closely on the tail of one American Tree Sparrow, however it just couldn’t keep up with the LBJ.

Chad