[Ontbirds]CAROLINA WREN & REDPOLLS by Newcastle

[markus lise]

Season Greetings & Happy Christmas Bird Counting,

Today on my suit feeder a beautiful CAROLINA WREN.  A southern bird but
never migrating.  Unknown pressures often send their youngsters northward.
So long as the winters are mild, they survive to build resident
populations.  Then comes a bitter winter, severe and pitiless.  Since
CAROLINA WRENS are not migratory, they do not instinctually turn southward.
They stay, and they perish.  Even as far south as Maryland, all the
boisterous CAROLINA WRENS have died in a single winter.  I am not sure
whether to be happy or sad.  But since it is the Holiday season let's be
happy with this sighting for the moment and hope for the best.  But the
process of northern expansion begins all over again.  After several years of
vacant niches, one spring morning WHEAT-EATER, wheat-eater, wheat-eater,
wheat! rings once again through northern woodlands.
Yesterday there were 6 REDPOLLS on my niger feeder but I have not seen them
today.  There were at least 20 JUNCOS & 12 AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES on the
feeders as well as 13 MOURNING DOVES, 1 WHITE BREASTED NUTHATCH, 1 DOWNY & 1
HAIRY WOODPECKER & 1 NORTHERN CARDINAL.

Directions:  Take #440 exit off Highway 401 and drive south towards the lake
and stop on the side of the road by 590 Mill St. S.

Markus Lise
Newcastle, On