We've been seeing very few finches in the garden lately. But this morning our resident chickadees and juncos suddenly became very frisky and excited, and a flock of purple finches came in. The visitors weren't there for the seeds in the feeder, but for the berries on the waxball and holly bushes.

They stayed three or four minutes and were off, off to the SW, up the valley.

Among the, say, forty purple finches was only one adult male (the guys who are *actually* purple) and he's not in this picture.