Christmas Early!

While we were out west, we gave our kids their family Christmas present a little early, a bird feeder.  It was a hit, and immediately successful in bringing birds into the yard.  Warning - a bunch of blurry bird pictures follow.  I had a lot of trouble with my auto-focus in the dim grey light.

We started talking about birds because they'd been seeing a Varied Thrush, a beautiful orange and black bird of the Pacific coast which I had never seen before.  It was coming to eat the berries off the Yew shrubs.

We got them the same kind of squirrel-proof feeder that we've had, on a tall stand.  And immediately the Oregon Juncos moved in.  Much like our Junco, but brown where ours are grey.

A Towhee soon joined them.

But the Juncos just stayed around all the time we were there.  Normally ground feeders, they did flutter up to the feeder enough to knock down seeds for the other Juncos.

Of course there was a visiting Chickadee.

I think this was a pair of Purple Finch, mostly brown but with red on the male's head..

But the highlight for us was the kids.  Our grandson spotted the first birds arriving, and several times a day they'd go and watch from the window - our grandson with his toy spyglass, and our grand-daughter with her 'toilet-paper roll' binoculars!  We thought our Christmas gift was a success.

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