It has been a few years, at least since we retired, that we have been 
foolish enough to remain in the Washington, DC, area during July and 
August.  Weather wise, 2006 seems to have been a particularly 
inopportune time to decide to stay around here!

Nevertheless, this long spell of hot weather has given us the chance 
to see what birds will come to our feeders.  To our great surprise 
there have been lots of them.

House Finches and House Sparrows:  no surprise here, and some of the 
former species have had that eye disease that renders them quite 
blind.  Joy has taken several up to Second Chance in 
Gaithersburg.  We just re-cleaned all our feeders once again with Clorox.

When we returned from a month in the U.K. in early July, we started 
putting out orange halves and half-apples.  Very soon, we had several 
Catbirds as regular visitors, which first of all favored the 
oranges.  After a bit, they gravitated to half-apples (Red Delicious, 
usually the least expensive apples in our local supermarket).  But it 
turns out that Squirrels also (wouldn't you know it?) love apples, 
and we have had to resort to increasingly stringent measures to 
secure the apple halves so that the squirrels don't simply take them 
away to their clandestine eating places.  Impaling the apples on 
three long nails hammered into our deck rail has not proved 
sufficient.  Other birds that appear to favor apples include 
Red-bellied Woodpecker, an adult male and a juvenile, who visit 
generally in the early morning, and two Cardinals  The young 
Red-bellied also loves orange.

We have several Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers who always favor peanuts 
or mixed seeds; they have never touched the orange or 
apple.  Likewise, a number of Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, 
species that we missed for several years during the worst of the West 
Nile virus outbreak and welcome back with pleasure.  White-breasted 
Nuthatches have been regular also at the peanuts, and a young one 
today collided heavily with our back door;  he had to be kept inside 
for 30 minutes until his head cleared enough to be released. Carolina 
Wrens have been stalwarts at the peanuts and 
safflower/sunflowers.  Today, a House Wren showed up.  This species 
has been a big disappointment; they have failed to nest in the yard 
despite four very suitable (we think) next boxes.  Our local Song 
Sparrows have produced Song Sparrows this year - most years we see 
them feeding Brown-headed Cowbirds, but not in 2006.  And yes we do 
have some Common Grackles and even the occasional Starling.

Anyway, feeding in Maryland in the summer does have some positive elements.

And young Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have just started to appear at 
our hummer feeder.

So maybe it's okay to stay around DC in the summer doldrums?

Mike Bowen
Bethesda, MD


D. H. Michael Bowen (Mike)
8609 Ewing Drive
Bethesda MD 20817-3845
Tel/Fax: (301) 530-5764
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