We can tell it’s spring by the variety of birds that stop by at our feeders during their migration north. Every day has brought new species the past week or so. This flock of red breasted grosbeaks stayed for a few days. Red seems to be the color du jour. We’ve seen cardinals, purple finches, northern flickers, hairy woodpeckers, all with a splash of red in their coloring. I hope the turkeys keep a low profile until noon every day though. It’s our local hunting season, which for some reason ends at noon daily. I have seen one turkey around, we’ll see if it’s still here at the end of May.

We are new birding enthusiasts. Most of the time, my identifications are confirmed if the bird is thought to be common in our area. Not always though. This may be a white crowned sparrow, which is considered uncommon in my Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America. The coloring in the photo isn’t great but we never saw yellow above the eyes, which would differentiate it from the more common white throated sparrow.

We saw the food chain in action the other day. We had just returned home and saw a hawk swoop down and snatch a bird from the lawn and fly off. It was a good meal because the bird had been fattening itself at our feeder. Are we feeding them for them, for us, or their predators?