Merry Christmas to all!

Well I spent the past two and a half days up at my folks for the holidays. I kept an eye on the feeders to some extent, but obviously was spending time with family for most of the time. The coolest thing for me was having a lone Wild Turkey come under the feeders every couple of hours.
And then, I filled up the peanut feeders in the midst of the snow on the 26th, and had five woodpecker species on them within a half hour of them being filled. This also marks the third consecutive winter that both a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a Northern Flicker have wintered in my parents yard and been regular guests at the feeders! I think there is a very solid case that these birds are the same individuals (since I've never had either species ever winter or come to the feeders for the ten years I lived there prior to the last three...) which also is pretty amazing that species like these have that kind of wintering site fidelity...
Anyway, I hope you all had a great holiday and here's to a great 2010 (will the competition reset?)!

Surprise guest

I know this is going to give Curtis all kinds of identification trouble (heck, I won't be too surprised is all of you have trouble), so I am going to make him/you suffer (mwaaahaaahaaa). After last night's full 12 inches of snow I was very surprised to see this at my feeder with the new frenzy:

without a doubt my latest ever for Michigan (!) by at least a month. Wonder where this bird has been over the last month or two? Also had the fall's first yard American Tree Sparrow today. Bring on the BRSP for a Spizella trifecta.