I was just sitting at my kitchen table looking outside at the feeders on my deck wishing that I'd get a siskin, too. A bird popped up in the branches just of the deck, and it was a male EASTERN TOWHEE. I was shocked (they rarely come up to the deck even in the regular time of year).
I fumbled with my camera and eventually got a few recognizable shots. Then I realized that there was another bird in the tree, and it was a FEMALE towhee, brown where the male was black. They dropped down out of sight without coming onto the deck where juncos and a cardinal were eating seed. They might have found some food that had dropped off the deck, but I'm not sure. In other birding news, it was a crummy day to go birding today. But, I did have a small flock of Snow Buntings (20) and Horned Larks (5) feeding on the piles at the Cornell compost facility today. 450 American Crows (my objective, of course), but fewer than a dozen gulls, only 1 vulture (Turkey), and actually not many Red-tailed Hawks. Kevin -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
