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In 2016 I’m doing a 365 Nature project. Learn more about the project and see all the 365 Nature posts.


Today I watched the birds visiting the feeders that I put up on Day 254 and refilled this morning. The peanuts I put in the feeder were gone within an hour or so and as far as I saw, they were all taken by the Steller’s Jay. In the afternoon I sat and watched the goldfinches, of which there are many, visiting the feeders. They prefer the shelled sunflower mix and the patio mix, and are almost never on the feeder with the whole sunflowers in the shells. The Black-capped Chickadees seem to prefer the sunflower seeds in the shell, but will visit the other feeders as well. Aside from the Steller’s Jays, no other corvids have visited the yard today, that I have seen. A couple of Dark-eyed Juncos have also been around the yard and a few House Finches.

Last autumn and winter I had many species in our yard, usually averaging a dozen or more a day. One particular day I noted 17 species in our yard. It’ll be interesting to track how many species I have this year as I’m already up one, the Scrub Jay, which didn’t visit last year.

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Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner is a naturalist, writer and artist based in Seattle. She is the author of THE NATURALIST AT HOME: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us and NATURE OBSCURA: A City’s Hidden Natural World from Mountaineers Books, a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and Pacific Northwest Book Awards. She writes articles about natural history and has bylines in Crosscut, Popular Science, National Wildlife Magazine and others. On the side she writes fiction.

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