I’m still working on porting my photos to the new iMac, so there won’t be any photos for this blog post. However I do have some significant news.

I noticed on Sunday, November 16 (2014) that our Pine siskins had returned. I took the trouble to investigate my historical records and noted that the siskins VERY ABRUPTLY  disappeared in August, 2013. They are normally our most numerous winter yard bird, but in that respect they were replaced this last winter by Dark-eyed juncos of the Oregon race. The juncos have always been numerous, just not as numerous as the siskins. I had seen numerous small birds flying around the yard and suspected Bush tits, but they turned out upon observation to be the siskins.

Yesterday the siskins were all over the yard, and I estimate that there may have been as many as 20 or more in the yard at one time. They seemed elated at the new (to them) watercourse and at one point I observed six bathing within about a foot of each other,  others in parts of the watercourse I couldn’t directly observe, and still others fluttering around the watercourse. So here’s a big “welcome back” to our Pine siskins!

And also on Sunday, while watching the siskins, I saw a single female Red crossbill in the watercourse. On Monday I observed three male crossbills in the watercourse at one time, then later a mature female and two younger females. Then still later another male, this one a seemingly uniform reddish-orange, visited the watercourse. This last male was very distinctive , seemingly lacking the mottling in coloration that seems to be the trademark of the species. So all told there were at least seven crossbills visiting the watercourse, four males and three females.

Given that the weather will probably hold another day (clear skies since last Thursday, when we returned from New Mexico), I’ll probably try to spend at least part of the afternoon in the yard with my camera. (More about New Mexico in a future blog.) I’ll be taking photos of the siskins that I missed last winter and hoping that unusual male crossbill makes a return visit.

And I’ve made some progress with my computer struggles, just not with my photos. This blog was written on my new iMac using a Microsoft ergonomic (split) keyboard. I had been extremely handicapped up until Sunday with having to use the extremely small Apple keyboard, my PC notebook keyboard and Appole’s mysterious mouse instead of my Logitech Optical Trackman. I’m now back in the groove and have the key entry tools that I’ve used for so long and to which I’ve gotten so habituated. And my iMac is communicating and exchanging data with my iPad and both will be doing the same with my new iPhone 6 which is supposed to be delivered sometime before the middle of December! This old dog is learning some new tricks (training session on the iPad this Tuesday morning) and it will soon be a new day coming!