Hi, June. I've never had much seed loss from the socks, oddly enough. They really are so cheap and easy to keep during our brief goldfinch season that I almost always use them. I've gone through three of them this spring, but now I'm down to just two goldfinches and they are feeding mostly on sunflower seed at the tray feeder. I do have one screened in thistle seed feeder, but the birds didn't seem to like it as much as the sock. I've thought about getting one like you linked to, but never bothered with the extra expense, since the goldfinches are only here for 3 or 4 weeks before heading back north. They come through in the fall, too, but not for as long. No matter which style feeder used, they do LOVE those thistle seeds, and it is so worth putting out for them. I had males this year completely colored up, solid brilliant yellow with black wings and cap, by the time they left. They were breathtaking. (Not my photo, btw) One thing, though...I didn't see a single bunting this year. Last year, I had indigos almost every day, and two painted buntings for about a week or 10 days. I also had a rose-breasted grosbeak one day, and a blue grosbeak once. So far, none of them has shown up this year, sniff! My catbird is still here and still eating seeds, but the myrtle warbler has finally figured out that he isn't supposed to be a seed eater and has gone off to find the rest of his flock. The garden is so much the richer for these wonderful creatures I share it with. They make my heart happy, and I hope to find more and more plants and flowers that will help bring them in. Marcia

I'm getting ready to put up 2 more seed feeders, one hanging from the underside of the deck as the nyjer feeder does, and one window mounted. Its a walkout basement situation. I'll be using black oil sunflower seeds in the hanging feeder (its the Brome Squirrel Buster Standard) and I haven't decided, either sunflower chips/hearts or more black oil sunflower seeds in the window-mounted feeder. Will the Juncos be drawn more to those feeders than to the nyjer? I could mount the window feeder lower on the window to be nearer ground level if it might attract them away from the nyjer feeder. There are at least a couple of them that want to feed at the feeder now. I don't know if they are always the SAME couple but never more than 2 on the tube. I wouldn't mind except they insist on driving the goldfinches away. The VAST majority of them are happy on the ground. There does seem to be plenty of seed for them there, I can see it through the window even in the grass. The juncos like to fly up to my window and perch on the edge of it and peer in. I don't know why but they do. So flying INTO the window shouldn't be an issue. I've actually never seen a bird fly into a window, except once at someone else's house where they had a giant picture window that was in direct line with a patio door. I'm pretty sure the bird thought it was flying towards the trees it could see in the backyard through both windows. Otherwise I've never had a bird fly into a window. It kind of freaked me out the first time I heard one land - I thought one had flown into the window after all, but there was nothing there by the time I looked. When I heard the scritching sound the next time, I looked around and there was a junco just perched on the lip of the window looking at me out of the side of his head. Every now and then one will pop up and perch there for a few seconds before flying off. I have NO idea why. They're perched on the lip of the upper half of the window, not on the sill. It's kind of strange, LOL!

Thanks for the response. You reminded me of when I lived in Colorado. Here in RI its been in the 40's at night and 50's lately in the daytime. We will get some Indian summers yet. Our blue jays are here all year, but they don't frequent the feeders too much. No scrub jays here, towhees only in summer (gone now), white-crowned sparrows sometimes, white-throated sparrows are frequent at times and no collared doves in this area. No magpies either. I really liked seeing them in CO. The locals didn't seem to like them much, but I thought they were beautiful handsome birds. Our blue jays take their bird community niche here in the northeast.

Genealogy is another of my interests. I've been at it 40 years and have almost 15,000 names in my file at http://www.perilloux.org/family/origin.htm Unfortunately, because of the French Revolution, WW1 and WW2, I was only able to trace my French ancestry back only to the early 1700s. Here is a photo from sometime before December 1877, taken with an unknown camera type. Looks like something out of the wild west, but it was in Louisiana.