The past few weeks have brought some interesting changes to the yard. 
Yesterday morning I looked out my computer room window to find a female Wood 
Duck sitting in the beech tree just next to the house. She was examining a 
rotted out branch hole on the side of the tree. A male soon joined in the 
search and the two of them spent 30 minutes or so exploring the larger trees 
for a suitable nesting hole. Looking at my past records, the last week of 
March, first week of April is the window when I'm likely to see these birds 
in my yard. We live a mile from the Patuxent River with a small creek 
running along the back of the property. Still, the ducks must think nesting 
here is doable.........not that I've evidence that they ever have been
successful. Some years ago, excited by the discovery of these birds, we put 
up a Wood Duck box on a tree down by the creek but only succeeded in making 
some squirrels happy.

A pair of Eastern Bluebirds has claimed one of our nest boxes and the nest 
appears complete. I watched the female bring in a beakful of what looked 
like raccoon fur two days ago.

A single Fox Sparrow has been feeding on the ground under the feeders. It's 
been around for several weeks now. The goldfinch population stands around 80 
and they are voracious feeders. Some of the males are really starting to 
color up.

The highlight of the almost non-existent snow flurry today were the 34 
Purple Finches that were at one particular feeder. At least half of them 
were red males. The usual daily number of Purple Finches has been about 10 
(since 12/2/05), so these birds are probably on the move.

My very tame male Pine Warbler that's been visiting my window feeder for 
some years now has not returned. The Pine Warbler that is presently trilling 
in the pines was seen briefly visiting another feeder today. He didn't even 
notice  the nearby window feeder. I really miss "Piney."

Arlene Ripley
Calvert County, MD
http://nestbox.com
piwa99 at comcast dot net