Blue Jays get ugly

Another gorgeous morning with clear skies, light north/northwest winds and rising temperatures. As has been true for a while, the morning activity is dominated by American Goldfinches, now almost all in their winter plumage, accompanied by a small number of House Finches and a large number of Yellow-rumped Warblers. Song, Swamp and Chipping Sparrows continue to pop up from the underbrush and the usual woodpeckers and paridae come by (the local paridae are the Black-capped Chickadee and Tufted Titmouse). Flocks of American Robins accompanied by a few Northern Flickers came streaming by, almost always from the 'wrong' direction -- southwest to northeast; they are night flyers who continue to fly into the morning. There are still numbers of Blue Jays looking for acorns and raptors. When they find a raptor they make a peculiar, ugly, rasping sound, unlike anything you would normally associate with a jay. It is either a warning to the raptor that the jays are on the case or a signal to other jays in the neighborhood that a bad guy is around -- or both. It also leads me to find the raptor; in this morning's case, a Sharp-shinned Hawk that eventually left the premises for the other side of the creek. There was also a handsome adult Cooper's Hawk -- a male I suspect but I'm not completely sure -- and a Red-tail Hawk soaring over the creek. A notable find was a White-eyed Vireo hanging out with a couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets -- with which it shares some characteristics. Eric Salzman