Day 64: The yard is alive...with the sound of chirping...CHURP! CHURP! Chomp-chomp-chomp! CHURP! CHURP! (squabble) CHURP! Chomp-chomp-chomp! The Porch Parrots arrived en masse a few days ago, cleaned the feeders in a matter of minutes and were back the next day for more. They skipped one day (or maybe I just didn't see them), but today the feeders are again full of cranky Porchies who are sure the seed their neighbour just ate was better than the one they picked up. Even the females are argumentative, but disputes are never too serious. A few snaps of the beak in the direction of the lower-ranking intruder is all it takes for the dominant bird to establish its position.
Porch Parrots - Coccothraustes vespertinus, Evening Grosbeak - are some of my favourite people. They earned their nickname in a twofold process. The first step occurred while I was hiking the Wonderland Trail with my husband when he discovered them near our camp at Summerland. He drew my attention by saying, "Come here! There's a whole tree full of parrots!" Some years later, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens threw them off their migration route, and hundreds of them came to our porch to feed. They've been "Porch Parrots" ever since, and they've never missed a year, often going through as much as 600 pounds of black-oil seed in a year. What can I say? I'm a sucker for birds.
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