The Neighborhood Hotspot

Some Juncos and Goldfinches Visiting the Feeders

The activity at my feeders seems to increase with each passing day. At one point yesterday I counted no less than three dozen birds (primarily chickadees, goldfinches, nuthatches, and siskins) at the feeders at the same time. As I was working on Friday’s entries, I heard a blue jay in the side yard, so I quickly made my way down to the sunroom (I hadn’t heard or seen a jay in a couple weeks—much less one at the feeders—so I was pretty excited.) Not only were there two jays, but a red-bellied woodpecker as well. I initially thought it to be a flicker, but the coloration of this particular woodpecker was a bit darker than the flickers that had visited the yard previously and it had noticeably more red on its head. By the time I got back from running upstairs to fetch my camera, the jays and red-bellied were gone.

Hoping that they would come back, I perched on my stool and stayed there for almost forty-five minutes watching the comings and goings of the birds. While the woodpecker didn’t return during this time, the blue jays did (accompanied by a third jay) and a white-breasted nuthatch made a couple of appearances. I was pretty sure I had seen this new nuthatch the other day, but wasn’t completely positive. This was a pretty exciting sighting.

After refilling the feeders yesterday, I realized I was almost out of seed. I needed to run a couple errands in town anyway, so I swung by Wild Birds Unlimited and picked up a twenty pound bag of “Supreme Blend” on my way through Johnson City. I received a free bag of “Choice Blend” with the window feeder and a bag of “Supreme Blend” with my hopper feeder. The “Supreme Blend” is a little less expensive and appears to have more black oil sunflower seeds, but the birds seem to really like it. What the birds really didn’t seem to care for is the cheap seed purchased at the grocery store. Lesson learned.

Here’s another shot of a pine siskin at the sock feeder with noticeable yellow on the tips of its wing: