Fall visitors flying in

BarrytheBirderPhoto

Here's a female Purple Finch (on the left) which I photographed at my Niger Seed feeders today. She was not warmly received by the ever-so-slightly smaller Goldfinches (on the right) but she held her perch until satisfied. The Great Lakes area is the part of North America that can host Purple Finches year-around. Elsewhere they can be found as far north at James Bay (in summer) and as a far south as the Caribbean's American shoreline. For a few minutes, earlier in the afternoon, a Carolina Wren ate seeds on a nearby platform feeder. By the the time I retrieved my camera from the Jeep, it had vanished. Although I waited for an hour or so for it to return, it did not. The waiting time was not completely wasted as I watched many of those trapped Chilean miners being returned to the surface of the earth, above the San Jose Mine, into the arms of their loved ones. Maybe tomorrow the Carolina Wren will return to my feeders and I will take its picture - stay tuned. As it is, today's sighting was species #72 for my list of backyard birds.
BtheB