Email from Clay and Cliftia Johnson:

It has been quite cold (-33 one recent morning). We have mostly goldfinches (ca 50), house finches, mature and immature white-crowned sparrows (pale lores-about 30 birds), three song sparrows, a flicker or two, and a few house sparrows as a regular feeder crowd right now. Within a few hundred yards of the house this winter we are seeing see the occasional bald and golden eagle, sharp-shinned hawk redtail hawk, sandhill crane, cedar waxwing, mountain bluebird, red winged blackbird, and Canada goose.

More interesting birds recently include: a brief glimpse of (at least partial) a yellow-shafted flicker (red nape) on the last day of November, the first one we have seen; and tonight a first-year black rosy-finch (as I make it), the first one we have seen at the feeder in a decade. No Harris’s sparrow so far this winter (disappointing). It is almost time for the Cassian’s finches and black-lored white-crowned sparrows to appear, and the male red-winged blackbirds will be displaying by the 27th, about three more week. Spring is coming!

Clay and Cliftia.