I looked out the window this morning and spotted two American goldfinches on
the feeders. I thought they were sick like the ones I had last November but
once I put the binos on them, I realized what the spots on their heads are:
They're NOT sick.... they are both males developing their black caps for
summer!
They are just getting their brighter yellow plummage too.
I'm assuming that these two are half of the flock of four I had hanging
around off and on all winter. Sadly, I don't think the other two
survived.... they both developed avian pox, causing me to completely
disinfect everything outside. Knock on wood, it seemed to end there.
Lovely view this morning: bright sunshine (altho' heavy frost this
morning), clear skies and loads of redpolls (all commons with ONE hoary
thrown it for good measure!) and chatty evening grosbeaks in the backyard
with the two goldies. The pine grosbeaks seem to be moving out .... their
numbers have plummeted in the past week. They'll leave until October. It
was a good season with them.
No sign of geese or eagles yet or purple finches. Shouldn't be too long
tho'.
