Charlie Spencer

Great photos!

I had half a dozen Pine Siskins at the nyger feeder this morning, competing with the Goldies. I've only had them here once before, two or three years ago, and that was much later in the season. Between their early appearance and the first Purple Finches I've ever had here, I'm optimistic about getting more uncommon visitors this winter!

This morning was the first with temperatures near freezing. The cold front apparently brought the Hooded Mergansers; the first dozen of the season were on a farm pond this afternoon. Welcome! Dark-Eyed Junco, maybe? https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco

My mistake. I assumed 'John Paul Landing' was a boat landing on the coast named after John Paul, not a complete name. Having Googled the location and finding it inland, and not too far from where I saw Great-Taileds myself several years agon, I agree with @birdbrain22

"He doesn't have to Shootyounow."

Are these supposed to be the same bird? The first one is a Brown Pelican, apparently either into aerobatics or with major inner ear problems . The second looks like a grackle, possibly Boat-Tailed; wait for confirmation, please. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/brown_pelican

What is the first bird perched on?

[sarcasm] Bunch a European immigrants. House Sparrows too. Obviously can't be trusted to stay where they belong; they got here, didn't they? [\sarcacm]

Then we'd be updating the maps all the time. It's time to stop this undisciplined wandering. It's too late to hope for any conformity from the existing birds; they're all a bunch of unprincipled Millennials. Our only hope for future birding is to properly indoctrinate future generations. Gotta nip it in the bud. Show a bird a map and he'll stay in his range for a day. Give a bird a map and he'll stay there the rest of his life.

I'm funding a Kickstarter to provide iBird to all of 2019's fledglings, juveniles, immatures, and young gulls up through their 2nd year plumage, so they'll know what their ranges are. Maybe then they'll stay where they're supposed to be.

If I was looking for a Brown Thrasher, I'd also check down on the ground. They may not call from there but that's where they feed, actively foraging through the leaves and other debris.

Most of us here are going to encourage you to feed birds! You can get an inexpensive plastic feeder and black oil sunflower seed at most 'Big Box' stores. Black oil sunflower is preferred by most species of birds you'll attract to at a back yard feeder, including your House Finch. You could hang it from an unused hook on your porch. That will discourage squirrels from eating the seed, although you'll have to sweep the empty seed hulls off the porch. You could also hang it from a tree branch or pole in the yard; less mess but more available to squirrels. Everything's a trade-off If you decide to not feed them, they'll be fine. Just as they got along for centuries without artificial heat sources, they got along living on the native food sources available without people feeding them.

Where are you, and is that an incandescent or LED bulb? Depending on your location, the bird may be using the bulb to get warm. Since birds have lived in your area for millenia without lamps, he probably doesn't really need it. Unless you want to keep it on the rest of the season, I'd wait until the next predicted warmer night and then turn it off.

Fascinating. Until now, I'd always just -assumed- a migrating flock was all one species.

Another thought on this point: novels aren't usually read repeatedly, week-in and week-out. They're read once, maybe paged through a couple of times to find a previous plot point, then shelved until re-read months or years later. The pages are going to hold out longer for fiction than a reference being thumbed dozens of times a day, several days a month. I realize I'm making comparisons of this format to novels only, but so far those are the only two examples you've cited. Do you think you could produce these for substantially less than a standard sized guide? If not, when I'm in the bookstore looking at this beside Sibley's, etc., portability appears to be the only advantage to this format to this Luddite. I don't see that as a winner for comparably priced products.