New Seed Attracts Diverse Crowd

I was taking a sanity break from work this afternoon. Took a look at the tree that holds the feeder at the side of the house. I've recently changed to a seed mix that includes nuts and various fruit -- looks like raisins. I couldn't believe my luck that there were three different kinds of birds on the tree all looking at the feeder.



I was pleased that the blue jay hung around.



And then I was shocked to see it actually go to the feeder, where it used this technique:



After picking out a seed, it decided to fly back to a branch of the tree.





No sooner had the blue jay departed than this young male cardinal showed up.





The female downy returned and gave me a different angle.



This male house finch posed in the tree on the way to the feeder.



The female was not far behind, although by now the light was failing some so I've had to do some post processing to brighten this image.



A tufted titmouse dropped by the feeder:



Even a song sparrow dropped by:



Even a catbird dropped by:



There were also a couple of chickadees. Here's one of them:



Finally, on my way back into the house, I spotted this goldfinch on the other feeder:



An amazing diversity in the space of a quarter of an hour or so.