Goldfinch

We have hundreds of finches, half of them these tiny goldfinches, almost as small as a hummingbird, showing up at the bird feeders every day. We're about to put in a third bird feeder because the queue at the two we already have is getting quite long. It's very entertaining to watch them coming and going. There seems to be a fairly well respected  pecking order with the goldfinches coming at a different time than the house, finches, purple finches, and siskins.

The woodpeckers and jays are fewer than they used to be, but they manage to clear the decks when they fly in, which is whenever they feel like it. I would think we would be inundated with acorn woodpeckers, since we are being bombed by hundreds of acorns a day, landing on the deck and patio, but perhaps they are too big for the woodpeckers to fit in their holes, many of which are in the eaves of our house....

We have coopers hawks and peregrine falcons which come screaming over occasionally, giving everybody ample time to disappear into what little cover is left for them. They don't interrupt their feeding for long though. The moment the hawk has cleared the area they are all almost instantaneously back again.

I slept late (for me) this morning, leaving only fifteen minutes for me to throw on my clothes and leave for Trail House to meet a friend for coffee. Spike went indoors with us because everything outside was wet from an overnight light rain,  and he behaved himself admirably. It was a nice way to start the day and still gave me time to work on my project of polishing the floors when we got back. There is  'mission creep' with this task as furniture must be moved, revealing long forgotten corners full of spider webs and their occupants, dust and a few long forgotten items which had fallen behind the furniture. Planning is required because it takes at least an hour to dry.

Dana came by with a ball for Spike that emits a noise. We spent a hilarious half hour watching him trying to figure out that the sound was coming from the ball that he was trying to find. Makes a change from the Kong but we have to make sure he doesn't chew on it because it has two batteries in it....