Windy

It was gloomy when we got up and had apparently been raining not too much earlier.  By 10am a strong wind from the Northwest pushed the clouds away and brought fresh winter birds.  Gusts peeled the leaves off trees making it a bit easier to spot birds but reducing what has been a very colorful fall.  Downy woodpeckers were the only feeder birds active.  Before the gloom departed I spotted the first bufflehead of the season - a female.

As I was peeling sweet potatoes I saw a Baltimore oriole in the camellia outside the kitchen window.  It was poking into flowers but I don't know if it was catching bees or eating the flowers.  A blue jay helped itself to mealworms and then so did the oriole.  Between them they emptied the dish.

A titmouse tried out the suet.  The nuthatch was back on the feeder with the chickadees.  It even landed while K was tending the grill. A white throated sparrow joined a pair of juncos and a small flock of robins around the birdbath.  The robins flitted everywhere and tried the beauty berries.  One robin's back was spotted with white.  Then four goldfinches in winter drab appeared. 

Hoodies paddled around the geese and mallards on the creek while first a great blue heron, then a great egret, flew overhead.  A flock of crows pursued a red tailed hawk, the sight of which dispersed the songbirds.  Finally, the sun sank into a purple cloud bank as waterfowl commuted home. I thought I was done for the day, but then I discovered a cobweb spider housekeeping indoors in the corner of the window.