Kitchen Window

Surveys have shown that most bird watching in America takes place from the kitchen or dining room window. Interestingly, kitchen windows really weren't a part of American culture and homebuilding before the early 20th Century. But now, most homes are built with a kitchen or dining room with windows looking out onto the backyard--and that's the window that most popular window to watch birds from in America. This morning, while doing dishes at my own kitchen window, I was able to watch the common Mourning Doves, European Starlings, and House Sparrows in my small row house yard. Blue Jays and a Northern Mockingbird were flying around as well--then the prize, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker landed on a the trunk of a shrub on the edge of my yard. I don't have any big trees in my small yard, so this was the first sapsucker I've seen from my yard in almost two years of living here. Nice yard bird from the "most popular birding location" in America.