The past three days have seen some interesting activity at the feeders. Monday and Tuesday are Project Feederwatch count days for me and produced two season high counts. These counts consist of the most birds of each species seen at ONE time. 47 American Goldfinch and 19 Northern Cardinal are season highs and the Cardinal count ties my record since 2000. As is often the case today is outside the count days and two great sightings occurred. Upon our return from Mankato early this afternoon we found a Sharp-shinned Hawk dining on what happily turned out o be a House Sparrow on a snow pile next to the garage door. We parked not 10 feet away and it was not the least bothered until we finally got out of the truck. It flew to the woods with rest of its meal. Curious as to what was going on at the feeders on the other side of the house, I found only a few Downy WP, but 21 Black-capped Chickadees! In checking back 15 years I found I have never counted more than 11 Chickadees at one time. The activity was amazing. Of the 47 Goldfinches, 22 were on "thistle" sacks, 18 at raised feeders with #2 sunflower, the rest on the ground. Thank goodness for the birds entertaining us during this unpleasant coldspell !!
John Nelson Good Thunder MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
