I was going to call this post “The redpolls are coming, the redpolls are coming”, because today a large flock of them arrived in our yard and just stayed around much of the afternoon. As far as I could tell none of them were Hoary Redpolls.
Earlier in the day, when the temperature was still at 2 degrees (it got to about 11 degrees at our house today), I headed over to the Turnagain neighborhood where a flock of American Robins was seen yesterday. They were still in the same area, usually high up in trees and often silhouetted or lurking under spruce trees. Also flitting about were Bohemian Waxwings, European Starlings, a few White-winged Crossbills and a Black-billed Magpie. Some of the waxwings were working a rooftop, apparently eating the frost, as were a couple of the redpolls in our yard this afternoon.
In our yard, in addition to a couple of Steller’s Jays, eight Pine Grosbeaks, a Red-breasted Nuthatch and Black-capped Chickadees, a Hairy Woodpecker came to the peanut butter log on our porch, the second time I had seen one there.
304 species so far
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 