When we first moved here, I wanted to "save" every bird and critter that needed help, and quickly learned no one else around here was as worried about the wild things as I was. Our first year, a big owl crashed THROUGH the fiberglass skylite panel on the roof of the chicken coop. He cut his head and hurt a wing. I called all over southern Oklahoma and no one (least of all the local Fish and Wildlife people) were interested in helping that owl. I was crushed. Finally, we moved him to an adjacent small guinea coop/pen and put the guineas in with the chickens. We left the door open, and he finally flew away on his own after several days. I refused to catch mice for him, so he had to live on canned cat food for those few days. I guess if you live in an area where wildlife is very abundant, people don't get as excited about one injured bird. If blue jays are engangered, you can't tell it here! We probably are overpopulated with birds, though, because we put out food for them and have a constant water source. I HAVE noticed that there are more birds than usual hanging out around the garden and eating bugs in the garden. Birds are a terrific method of pest control, so I encourage them in every way possible. We ALWAYS have a pair of owls who stay together all the time and hunt together. One is a really big barn owl, and we call him Hooty. The other is a little screech owl, obviously named Screechy. You never see one without the other, which is fascinating. They've been here as long as we have. I don't know if the current Hooty and Screechy pair are the actual same Hooty and Screechy pair that we first saw in 1999. I think it is an odd pairing. I feel sorry for them....the crows harass them relentlessly and try to run them off. Our owls are mostly out at night, but every now and then I see them out late in the morning. For all the birds we have coming to the feeders, predator birds do not come into the yard much. Maybe the cats and dogs help keep them away? Oh, and the Purple Martins also like to chase off other birds attempting to "hunt" in their territory too. Dawn

HTown, don't be too comfortable with them. I've been feeding the ones in our yard off and on for awhile, but I never get too close to them. No matter how "familiar" you may be with them, they still have an instinctive distrust for people and they have the potential to be dangerous. Most people don't like them because they've had bad experiences with them, just like many other types of wildlife that invade or wreak some form of destruction on their property, and that's completely understandable. They can also be aggressive towards pets. I made a point of mentioning to my neighbors that there were raccoons active in our area. If you get to feeding them and slack off, they could move on to another property where they're not as welcome and that could have negative consequences for the neighbor, the raccoon or both. I'm not saying don't feed or enjoy them, but make sure you educate yourself on them before you get into it on a regular or semi-regular basis. Make sure there are no means for them to access your house including the roof and chimney, because once they know where the food is coming from they could try to find an easier way to get to it. It's best not to leave food for them near your house for this reason. One of the first things I did when I knew how much they came around was make sure they couldn't get on our roof from any trees, the area around our deck was sealed, and our chimney cap was secure. I added chicken(Actually smaller gapped fencing than chicken wire) wire around the opening to ensure there was no access.(Something I was going to do anyway to deter the birds that ended up in our living room.) This link I found can cover it a little more indepth. These are just tips, but they can be helpful. Feeding Tips I guess my message is it's fine to enjoy them, but make sure you know what you're getting yourself in for, as there are a few things to consider. :-)

Interesting about the kinds of seed everyone feeds. I feed primarily black oil sunflower 9expensive at Lowe's, but cheap at Tractor Supply - ($15 for 50 lbs). Black oil seems to be the preferred feed for cardinals, chickadees carolina wren, downy woodpecker, mourning dove, flickers, tufted titmouse,bluebirds, and an occasional jay. Sparrows feed on it, but prefer the hulled seed, as do the chickadees and wrens. An added bonus - the sunflower hull of the black oil seed seems to help the compost, and it mulches nicely in the flower beds! Used to get that weedy flower in GA, when I didn't use the sterile seed. You are also probably getting thistle seed in there. I feed probably 80 pounds of thistle in the winter, for the finches, primarily gold and red, with some buntings showing up in spring. If you feed thistle be very careful to get the sterile seed. its fertile and tends to fall below the feeder (doves and mice will eat it). I actually like the look of thistle, and the fact that it attracts bees, so my thistle feeders at the wood line all are not sterile. Come spring, I will get hundreds of thistle plants, that by summer will be beautiful purple flowers for the bees, and come late summer, natural seed for birds passing through. If you can tolerate the spiny leaves, and thistle 'fluff'(which bluebirds use all winter here for nesting), let it grow, it really is a pretty plant If you want to get rid of that 'smell' below the feeder, avoid seed with corn, when I fed a mix with corn, the corn would sometimes sit and ferment, or, as you discovered, grow. Corn here, whole or cracked, is an attractant of crows. I do throw cracked corn in the woodline to keep them away from the sunflower. Using cracked corn away from my garden, also keeps rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and racoons at bay! Crack corn doesnt seem to grow into stalks either. It does, however seem to cause my grass to die, so I keep it in areas that I don't have plantings.

Thanks everybody, we love to share our birds here. :) Konrad and renee - Yes, this is our beloved Redbud tree. It's very close to the deck and provides countless ever-changing perches for us to shoot our birds thruout the year. Rachel - We have "regulars" of many different species here which we recognize as individuals. Lots of them are mating pairs who've kinda claimed our little habitat as their territory, and raise their families here year after year. We do think of these birds as family, and most especially our Bluebirds. :) Donna - Many of our Bluejays and Goldfinches leave over the winter, tho we do see a few of each year-round. The Goldies get very pale olive/grey then, but they return in much greater numbers and it's always great to see them all getting golden again this time of year. Kenn