Aug 28, 2008

Bird Feeders

Our Bird Feeders are VERY busy right now as the birds fill up before their journeys south or before the cold sets in! We have 6 feeders going at the moment but will have more once the wrap around porch is completed. WE kept our feeders going all Summer this year and REALLY noticed a difference in the birds that visited us!

We also had our bird boxes in the woods which we know were used - we are thrilled about this!

At our feeders right now we have our families of American Goldfinches - these are amazing to watch and we have loved watching them grow from when it was just the parents to when the babies started their early flights!

We also have our baby Barn Swallows who were just the cutest little babies EVER!!!

We have had baby Chickadees who were such scruffy babies but are now just like their parents all smart and grouchy looking! They don't seem impressed with sharing their feeders with all those hungry Goldfinches - why on earth do Goldfinches have such big families?????

Our Woodpeckers had babies and they are gorgeous!

Our Hummingbirds had a couple of babies - only a couple we think - they grow VERY fast to the point that it isn't long before you can't tell baby from parent! The only way you can tell them apart is that they seem quite 'ditzy' around the feeders ;) They have now left to fly south though!

We now have a Pine Siskin visiting the feeder - I believe it's a female as she doesn't have much yellow on her!

And then there was my mystery bird which we have now identified as a White-breasted Nuthatch!!! Nothing like the Nuthatches we had in the garden in England - or the Nuthatches we get near our mailbox here and have been trying to attract here with the introduction of more spruce trees! These Nuthatches are HUGE for Nuthatches and this one I have NEVER seen upside down at the feeder - not once!!! It's gorgeous with its big white neck and black stripe down its face! I will try to get a better picture than the one I have!

So my feeders are being filled up almost daily and the birds are loving the mix of nuts, seeds and berries we are putting in (a mix I bought at Walmart when I couldn't get to the Wild bird store in time and couldn't lift the huge bag of Sunflower seeds lol) so I think I will just buy this mix in future - it's two different bags that I just mixed together but the different birds seem to love it!!! I tell you it's worth every penny to watch them frolic around out there :)

I will miss our Summer visitors when the leave - especially the Goldfinches - I know some stay over Winter occasionally - I wonder if any of ours will......
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