Dprothy, That's a lot of rain. I think ours was only about 53" for 2009 but haven't added it all up and that would not be a record for our county. And, of course, for us 53" was a whole lot, especially compared to 2008, when we received just under 23". You're in Adair County, right? I've linked your county's one-page climate survey from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, and it shows your county's record rainfall at just over 80" way back in 1927. Other climate data compiled at the state and county level is available to everyone at the OK Mesonet website and at the website of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Adair County

Bob, Great Shot, glad to see some of your finches are already molting to their summer breeding plumage, that means spring is coming,,,Hurrah!! Fortunately we got a nice sunny 35degF day today so I was able to get a shot from my bedroom window showing my whole feeder setup. The first shot is looking east from my bedroom window. In this shot you can see my seed hopper and suet feeders on the Maple tree, which is 60ft from my camera position. This location is working very well because many of the birds roost in the Maple tree during the day. Although you can barely see it in the photo about 20ft to the right of the Hopper there is a 65ft high pine tree that affords great cover for the smaller birds. Ten feet to the left of the Maple tree there is a small Butternut tree that is a favorite roosting place for the Morning Doves. I generally see upwards of 35 doves in that tree each morning. Another 15 ft to the left is a second 60ft Pine tree and behind the feeder sight you can see an 18 acres open meadow. You can see the woods are the far side of the meadow. That woods extends for about a square mile and it is mostly old stand hardwoods. Across the road to the left of this photo is another 300 acre hardwood stand, some new growth near the road, but old stand hardwoods from about 100 feet off the road. In the foreground to the left you can see my old garment hanger with the Niger & mixed seed tubes. On the left end on top you can see the plastic bucket lid that I use for a platform feeder. From my vantage point I generally use a 300mm lens to shoot birds on the hopper, suet feeder or on the ground below the hopper, while I use a 200mm to shoot close ups of the birds on the garment rack feeders. As you can see, all the birds at my feeders seem to play nice and I see very little competition.

Yikes! Sounds like you're feeding flocks of invasive European Starlings and greedy Common Grackles, probably parasitizing Brown-headed Cowbirds..all of which compete with and/or kill songbirds and their nestlings. But perhaps where you live there aren't any other kinds of birds. You could switch to Nyger and thistle tube feeders or take down your feeders until they move on. Feeding cracked corn, human food scraps, cheap "wildbird seed," on the ground or in tray feeders can quickly attract vermin of all kinds-bird or rodent-which could flood the neighborhood, preventing your neighbors from attracting native song birds to their feeders. Some bird books categorize by color to make it easy for beginners to find the right bird. Here's one on Amazon, but there are many others. You can click on the "used" link to get the book for almost nothing http://www.amazon.com/Stokes-Beginners-Guide-Birds-Eastern/dp/0316818119

Hi everyone, I have to admit, when I have taken them indoors in the aquarium, I do replace the water with fresh pond water about twice a week. bring in a bucket of pond water and let it come up to room temprature, and then take out about half the water in the aquarium with a cup and put in the same of fresh pond water. There is also elodea. I don't clean it, and notice they really do like the algae!! I don't think the same frogs are spawning, but different frogs may be coming to the pond at different times---we need a frog expert!! This year we had three distinct laying times in between the cold snaps over about 8 weeks, rather than have them all at the same time. So in the pond there would be about 30 frogs, rather than the 80 I counted last year. But we had more spawn than ever (I guess much of it survived due to milder weather in Devon and on really cold nights some bubblewrap). So we probably had about a 100, but not at one time. It also must have been quite stressful having warm days and then frost, so the poor guys may have been stressed--hence the poor fertilization some people have experienced? The hothoused taddies came back into the pond when they had back legs, and I have noticed some have already turned into froglets. At present it looks as if there are no taddies left, but sometimes at night there are a huge number milling about. So they must get really good at hiding. Goes to show we don't really know what goes on under the pond water! The stickelback males are beginning to show their colours now--talk about a stressful life having to build the house, protect it, woo the wife, look after the eggs, and then look after the kids and stop the neighbours from eating them. Stickelback females know they are onto a good thing! Chip