The beauty of bushtits

Though this sighting was not technically at Clark, it was pretty good. While I was planting gladiolus bulbs in my front yard today a cluster of seven bushtits attacked my suet feeder just eight or so feet away from me. I guess they decided I smelled enough like dirt not to constitute a threat. I've never been so close to them before. I love their big heads, and the subtle shading of grays in their plumage, and how cheerfully they collaborate in having at the suet. It was actually a pretty bird-social day of gardening. A very chipper European starling perched just above me on the utility wire and basically ran through the whole starling songbook. I know they're non-native, but you've got to love birds who enjoy one another's company so much. I know now these are the birds I watched when I moved here in 1996 as they slowly gathered in one tree, twittering, until their numbers swelled into the hundreds, and then all inexplicably silenced, then moved off in a cloud of wingbeats. Much as I wonder what I used to do with my time pre-Ramona, I now wonder how I could have missed so much avian activity before I picked up a bird book. Reviewed my copy of Birds of the Willamette Valley over post-gardening tea so I could recognize the yellow-rumped warbler if I come upon one.