Jane, if you only have one feeder out, you might try a good mixture with black oil sunflower seeds stirred into it. Don't get the cheapie kind with those little reddish-brown "BB's" in it. I have never seen ANYTHING actually eat those. I get mine at PetSmart, and I really love the Stokes mixture that has no hulls in it. I feed it, black oiler sunflowers and safflower seed. Safflower seed goes into a feeder that doesn't have squirrel protection, because they don't really like it, but cardinals and titmice do. HOWEVER, no matter what you are feeding, there will be times when birds are not around for various reasons. I have hardly any right now, mostly due to a pair of hawks hanging about our neighborhood. And even without the hawks, birds often disappear for a few weeks now and then. One more thing...don't forget that WATER is probably even more important than seed in luring birds to your yard. You'll notice that most of Maureen's pictures feature her great birdbath. Be sure to provide several "baths" around the yard. They can be anything from decorative features to trashcan lids on the ground with 2" of water in them. I often turn clay pots upside down and put a clay saucer on top for water. Keep the water CLEAN and shallow, maybe even adding a rock in the center for birds to stand on. Good luck! Marcia

Have you checked on ebay or amazon - those are usually the first places I look just to get an idea of availability and pricing.

I would have left the nestbox in the front yard and would have just taken the nest out to keep them busy there until you get the trap. Maybe put that one back up and hopefully they will go back to that one and leave the one the Blues want alone. Definately get that trap in asap when you get it and hopefully you can get them both. If you get the female first you should still be able to get the male but if you get the male first the female will leave. Like Linda said use a mesh or clear plastic bag once you have trapped a bird to make sure you got a HOSP and not another bird. Monitor that trap closely, you don't want to leave any bird trapped in there too long. I have trapped a TRES once and this year trapped a Downey Woodpecker boy did that suprise me! But they both were let go shortly after they got trapped and were fine. Thankfully after getting rid of 10 male HOSP so far this Spring, I haven't seen any around lately. Good luck, your trap should arrive quickly, Mr Van Ert gets them out asap. Donna

Wear a hat and it won't seem so intimidating. My first year with Blues was the only year I had terrible divebombers other years they were much more tolerant and just scolded me. We have TRES so Blues divebombing never seems as bad anymore. TRES get really really close when they divebomb and usually if there are other TRES around they join in the bombing mission. It is nuts with the TRES. I say go look but wear a hat and you probably will feel better. They won't hit you cause if they did they could injure themselves. Donna