Handsome but Unnamed

I am losing me edge.

Yesterday morning, a dozen multicolored, sparrow-sized birds appeared at my sunflower seed feeder.

I don’t recall ever seeing this kind of bird.  They were not waxwings.  Not grosbeaks.

The birds were mix of black, brown, white, and a kind of red aspiring to be orange.

And they were hungry.

While one or two of them took turns at the feeder, the others popcorned on the snowy ground nearby, pecking at the seeds I had broadcast for my daily juncos, magpies, and occasional woodpecker.

The flock quickly gleaned most of the seeds from the snow and flew up to perch in the nearby bare trees.

I stepped outside and tossed handfuls of fresh seeds across the ground.  I expected the birds to flare out of the trees and vanish into the landscape, but the birds did not budge.  As soon as I ducked back inside the house, the flock rained from the branches and went to work again.

The mystery birds spent a better part of the day in my trees and on the ground near my feeder.  I fed them four times.

As I said, I am losing my edge.  Rather than trying my best to identify the birds as they tumbled about in front of my house, I simply watched them.  While my regular visitors, the juncos and chickadees, tend to be somewhat intolerant of one another when they are at the feeder, the flock birds got along remarkably well.

This morning, I spent a few minutes browsing resources to see if I could identify the birds.  No luck yet.

I am hoping they return today so I can get a photograph of the handsome strangers.

—Mitchell Hegman