Christmas Feeder Visitors - 2012

Hello everyone!  It's been quite a while since my last post on here and I apologize to any/all of you who check on a regular or semi-regular basis for updates.  It's been quite a 2012 and I'm clearly looking forward to starting a new year.

Today I ventured out back to see what bird sightings awaited me.  I added slivered almonds to the usual mix of seed, as both a Christmas treat for the birds, and also to see if I could entice any new visitors.  I'm sad to report that no new visitors appeared, but today wasn't a total loss as far as bird photography goes.

The first visitor to the feeder was, as usual, a Northern Cardinal, (female).  She comes to the feeder daily and she isn't shy.  She's been known to go toe-to-toe with Mourning Doves and Common Grackles for her share of the seed.  Today was no different.  She seem however to be somewhat distracted when she first arrived.  Note:  It could have been the Red Shouldered Hawk that's been strafing the feeder sporadically, looking for a tasty morsel on the wing.  Today however, there were no hawk sightings so the Northern Cardinal female stayed quite a while eating her usual shelled sunflower seeds.  She'd grab a seed, fly to a nearby tree, eat the seed, then come back and do it all over again.  This went on for quite a while.

Her husband, (a big assumption on my part), the male Northern Cardinal arrived after about ten minutes and helped himself on some of the almonds.  After a few he went back to his usual black sunflower seeds and seemed quite happy with them.  He didn't stay as long, but he enjoyed his time until he had to chase another male
Cardinal from the area.

A little bird, (I am not yet as to the identification, though some people think it's a Palm Warbler), came while the Cardinals were there and ate quite a bit of millet.  Note:  If anyone can positively identify this bird, I would appreciate it.  He/she only comes during the winter months to my feeder, (Orlando, Florida) and he/she is very quick and will give a high pitched, "chip, chip, chip" when leaving the feeder.

Common Grackles and Red Winged Blackbirds also came to the feeder today and were, as usual, quite piggish.  All in all it was a successful outing, albeit quite short.  I will attempt another at the end of this week.  There seem to be some bird sounds in the copse I don't recognize.




Stay tuned...