Tuesday Oct. 6th

So, at lunchtime today, the usual flock of Mourning Doves - and another window-kill, the small flock of American Robins, and the Gray Catbird again. There was a good-sized mixed flock of sparrows feeding around the edges of the courtyard, under the shrubbery, and, try as I might, I could not make any of them into a Lincoln's Sparrow. A few White-throats, many Song Sparrows, many Chipping Sparrows, and, not to disappoint my birding effort, a single Dark-eyed Junco. So, no matter what the thermometer has been reading these last few days... 65, 75 degrees, we now know for sure that winter is coming. An old common name for our Junco was Snowbird - you can see a northern bias in a name like that, but in New England anyway, the Juncos really do arrive for the winter. an anonymously published photo from the web