The other day I saw on Facebook where someone had uploaded a video to You Tube of a 'sure fire' squirrel chaser. I liked the idea and really, what a cool idea. A SLINKY. Yes...a slinky. Just take your usual feeder on a pole and attach to underneath the feeder a SLINKY. As the squirrel tries to climb up the pole, it comes in contact with the SLINKY and slinks down..... I saw it on video, it works...!!

Yes, it worked only on  'You Tube'.... Need I say more? As evident by my image above, you can see my  SLINKY attached to the base of the feeder, and you can see the SLINKY, while coming down, merely providing a ladder for the squirrel to climb UP. Great idea....yeah, great. I think the SLINKY cost me $4.98 at Toys R Us.

Sometimes with the cold weather I find it hard to 'want to bird'....Let's see, spring is how many days away? Not that it will be toasty warm but perhaps I will see a bird or two!

Sunday the 17th of January....Forsythe. Nada....nothing...no birds. Okay, well some Canada Geese, Mallards, some Black Ducks but really not much. Of course Wildlife Drive was closed past the first tower and yes it was cold, but I was simply amazed that I saw no little birds. Nothing on the side of the road, no yellow-rumped Warblers in the trees to Gull Tower, nothing on Leeds trail. It felt like I was the last person standing on earth. Admittedly I saw a person or two but the utter lack of birds was amazing. But, I did get out and got some fresh air, so a win there.

Wednesday the 18th....Jake's Landing. I heard about a Sedge Wren being down there and while the odds were against me that I would be able to find the Wren amongst the reeds, I tried. But, no wren and yet plenty of wet, tall grass where it might have been. This little guy can be 3"....half the size of the Marsh Wren so just to see this secretive bird is a win. No such luck, no winner today. 

But what I did see were Northern Harriers/ Marsh Hawks.....many of them as they crept over the reeds. One of them took on a Red-tail which was perched in an Osprey nest. The Harrier would come up from behind and just swish over the Red Tail. The Red-tail didn't even bother to give it a second look. It just remained perched, no flinching. I wonder why the Harrier was doing this as usually any attack is from the Red-tails point of view. What was the Harriers intent? One will never know, as I forgot to ask it. 

Attention all Sub-species counters.....calling all sub-species counters.... Now hear this, (clang, clang), hear this..... Hold on to your individual sub-species counts of your fox sparrows. Keep a separate list of your sub-species and know where you observed them at.

This is a warning.... I  give you plenty of time as the ABA is never overly swift in their actions but, you might find that all of your 'sub-species' counts on the fox sparrow might someday be re-classified as four different species.

Currently, there is one species of Fox Sparrow divided among four sub-species. The four being: Thick-billed Sparrow (California for most part), the Slate Color-ed (western US), the Sooty (Pacific region along the coast of CA, OR and WA and up along the  Candadian border into Alaska) and the Red or Taiga sub-species found on the eastern board of the US.

There has been rumors that according to recent DNA and voice....they might split into four different species. Now, to me, I find that the size of the fox sparrow here on the east coast is much smaller than the larger fox sparrow I would normally find in WA state interior. So that alone got me to do some poking aroud into this and perhaps a change is in order. Not sure how far along they are in this process but I am hoping for a species split. Kind of like a stock split, 2 or 3 or 4 for 1. I can handle that.

Have you seen your winter fox sparrow yet? This is the time of year you will most likely see them at your feeders and in the snow, as of today on January 7th. They will visit your feeding area but look for them below the feeder as they scratch their way thru the snow. Chalk it up.....

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