What's happening here in my yard lately...

[Rob'in'To]

A couple Hawks have made a mess of the whole backyard experience.  One is definitely a Coopers who has been taking out a Pigeon about every 2 days for over a week now.  The other, a smaller one, (male Coopers or Sharp Shin) has been attacking everyone else.

But, in their absence, I do see a good number of birds, just not as frequent.  The last couple days have had...

12 Pine Siskins
33 American Goldfinches
3 Northern Cardinals (2 M, 1 F)
4 Downy Woodpeckers (2 pairs and they seem to have divided the yard in half)
3 Blue Jays
6 Juncos
5 House Finches
6 Chickadees
3 Mourning Doves
9 Pigeons (followed by the Coopers)
30 European Starlings (followed by the smaller Hawk)
2 Red Breasted Nuthatches
1 Common Redpoll (almost certain anyways)

and surprisingly the House Sparrow activity is almost nothing, saw 3 the other day compared to 20-ish

I am going through nyjer seed like crazy (10 lbs every 2 weeks) but everything else is slowly moving.  Normally the black oil sunflower seed purchases are almost weekly.  I am on the same 10 kilo bag for a month now.

[Axeman]

I find I use 1.5 of the president choice bags between 3 feeders / week...the usual suspects for me: dk eyed juncos, chickadees, a clan of 8 blue jays, a pair of cardinals, a pair of red breasted nutchatches and from time to time a hairy or downy woodpecker....and....a solitary male goldfinch...and then there are red squirrels with the occasional visit from one or two black phased grey squirrels...again, absent this year are the cottontails...I miss them and don't understand why the coyotes eat the cute bunnies when there are lots of sheep around.