I spent an hour or so in the yard on March 8, 2020, the first day in almost a week that weather seemed to beckon. Even so, it was quite cool.

This is a Song sparrow, one of two we have had in the yard recently.

This is a Fox sparrow, which I consider fairly similar to the Song sparrow. It took me a good while after moving to the PacNW to be able to differentiate between these two sparrows.

Another member of the sparrow family, a male Spotted towhee.

This is a Bewick’s wren which has been accessing our suet feeder for the past couple of months.

This is one of the early female Rufous hummingbirds visiting our yard…

And finally, a Pine siskin getting a drink of water in the yard on March 7. (Don’t try this at home!) We’ve had very few siskins for the past several months, but about two weeks ago we had one show up, then two and most recently about four. This is a species that in some past years has been our most numerous winter bird, but on occasion the species has been absent from our yard for over a year.