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Even though I live out here alone in the wilderness, there’s almost never a time when I can’t look out the window and see life in motion. (And I’m not just talking about the leaves and grasses blowing in the wind.) As long as it’s light out (and not raining), if I look down, I see lizards scurrying. If I look up, I see birds flying. And if they’re not flying, they’re making themselves at home in the birdbath or on the feeder.
Sometimes I don’t even have to get out of my chair to be entertained by the birds. That’s the reason I have the feeder hanging off the back porch eave. I also keep the binoculars handy, so that I can get a close-up view. I keep the field guide within reach, but I rarely see a species I haven’t already identified a hundred times before. The sparrows are the most common, but lately their dominance has been overshadowed by the finches.
The reddish house finches tend not to stay very long. They’ll peck at the food and then look around nervously, seeming to forget why they’ve landed on the feeder. Sometimes they’ll sit on the slanted wood roof of the feeder, looking over the yard while sliding down the slope until they realize what’s happening and flit up to the top again.
The yellow and black goldfinches are more determined eaters. They’ll really go at it when they have the mind to, but they will also at times hang from the rope that suspends the feeder from the eave, rubbing their beaks back and forth on it. They’re also more likely than the house finches to come in pairs, although sometimes they take turns. I’ve learned to identify some of the individual birds by their markings and the vividness of their coloring. I haven’t named them yet, though. | 
