All things considered, it's been a beaufiful spring Tea. Most of my spring rhodie/azalea blooms have been lengthened because of the cool, dry weather. While that system spinning in place over Western NY has resulted in one of the most abysmal songbird migrations in years, I'm comfortable in the fact that we get weather anomalies such as we're encountering this year from time to time and that this year's dearth of songbirds is attributable to the weather and nothing else. Relative to your post.....well, hail is indeed unusual for NJ . The breeze has been stiff and non stop; it could be worse (being cold & rainy) and living hear within a mile of the beach, it's been especially 'cool'. Rain has picked up of late, but what we don't need are those recent heavy deluges that run off quickly. Tea, it will only take the first heat wave to have most of us clamoring for this type of spring weather when the humidity begins equalling the temperature and we're wilting........ Keep the faith & hang in there ;^)

Sorry to hear about your fish, Ohiogdnr. Raccoons (and Herons) seem to be pretty pesty in ponds, from what I've read. There are a couple of large (50+ years) Pin Oaks on my property, and they seem to be making a lot of acorns this year. The canopy of one overhangs the deck and the acorns make a loud ping noise when they drop on it. The grey squirrels are busy burying acorns here and there. Thanks to them I'll probably be weeding out lots more baby Oak trees next year! I didn't see a hummer today, but have seen one on the Physostegia virginiana and the Cardinal Climber (Ipomoea x sloteri) in the past few days, both of which are blooming abundantly right now. The birds are going nuts over the annual Sunflower 'Mammoth Grey Stripe'. This morning I watched Titmice, Goldfinches, and even a Downy Woodpecker picking at the seeds and flitting amongst the leaves. The Goldfinches are all over the gardens, on the Agastache, Coneflower, Helianthus 'Lemon Queen', Rudbeckia, etc. Still lots of pollinators on the late bloomers - the annuals, Solidago, Aster, Monarda punctata and citriodora, Ageratina altissima, etc. but the number of butterflies has really thinned out. This is some of the obvious activity, but I bet it only scratches the surface.

How nice this thread got bumped! I enjoyed re-reading it and thinking about how much the yard has changed in a year. My bird-friendly yard is evolving. Have made great progress removing invasives, particularly Bittersweet, Buckthorn, and Norway Maples (treework cost me $2000 last year and there's still one GINORMOUS Norway maple left). There was a lot of brush created by all this tree/shrub work. Some was burned this Spring, right smack in the middle of the Oriental bittersweet patch, but the rest is in piles. The brush piles attract a lot of birds, particularly Sparrows, Cardinals, Juncos, and Wrens. The birds also love the back half-acre, which is wild and full of Crabapples, Choke Cherries, White Pine, and still some invasives like Honeysuckle and Autumn olive. Also making great progress on growing bird-friendly natives. Purchased another 50 native tree/shrub seedlings from the NH Nursery. That makes 130 total between this year and last - all of which ultimately make berries/nuts for the birds and wildlife. Most of them are in holding beds and haven't flowered yet, too little, but I've given away some and started to plant out a few. I winter-sowed many native species of perennials, annuals, and vines. Exactly where all this stuff is going, is not completely clear at this point, but I'm creating lasagne beds like crazy! The birds are always flitting around the yard and it's only going to get more interesting and fruitful for them (hopefully). It's great!

here in SD it is the pheasant. Let me tell you we have a lot of them. Some people say that the bad storms kill a lot of them, but I dont think it is true. More are probably killed with vehicles than storms. When you hit them with your vehicle they can do a lot of damage because they are a quite large bird. Every day when Im driving home from work for nine miles I probably see at least 20 of them if not more.