It's a European starling..They are invasive, kill other bird nestlings and their nest should be removed.They aren't protected by law as they aren't native and cause harm to other cavity nesters.. Here are some links to prevent them from nesting and to repel them : http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Starlings http://www.sialis.org/starlingbio.htm http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex729

Hi, again. Original poster, here. Thanks for that link -- it's a very extensive list! Unfortunately, my mystery bird wasn't on there. I clicked on every single bird on the list, even ones I'm familiar with. I first heard him in my neighbor's woods about 10 acres away, but this evening I heard him in my own back yard. His call is a little shorter now, but it's still the same "ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" A very clear, single-pitched whistle, no trills or warbles. Anyone else have a guess? My husband's out there now with the binoculars trying to locate him so we can get a better look. I am worried that he's someone's parrot or other type of exotic bird.

When I was a kid I grew up on my Grandfathers dairy farm in N.E.Ohio and although we did have tractors we did most of our farm work the old way with horse drawn equipment in the same way the Amish do today. With 45 cows, 13 draft horses, sheep, hogs, chickens and a number of young heifers coming up we had to grow over 30 acres of hard yellow dent corn to produce feed for the animals. In the spring when we were planting the corn Grandmother used to give us two or three large 3# coffee cans of squash and pumpkin seeds and as we filled the seed hoppers on the corn planter we would toss in a handful of Grandmas seeds. In the fall we cut the corn with a single row corn binder that cut the corn and tied it in bundles, which were then dropped on the ground, and we later had to stand all those bundles up into corn shocks were it stood in the field to dry until we could haul it a load or two a day to the barn to be husked. When the men were cutting the corn with the binder us boys had to run a couple rows ahead of the binder and find the pumpkins & squash, pick them and set them out in the cut part of the field so they wouldn't get run over by the binder then we had to hitch a team of horses to a box wagon and haul all the pumpkins and squash to the house and store them in the root cellar. In a typical year we would produce upwards of two tons of pumpkins and various varieties of squash, which were primarily Hubbards (which us boys affectionately called "HUBBUBS"), Acorn squash, Turbin Squash and Butternut squash and sometimes a few gourds which were used as decorations, cut into dippers or holes drilled in the sides and hung as bird houses. Needless to say, throughout the fall and winter squash was a mainstay of our diet in the same manner as potatoes and Grandmother knew dozens of different ways to cook them. For hubbards & butternut squash she primarily would cut them in half lengthwise, clean the seads out then steam or boil them, scoup the meat out of the shell, add butter and a touch of nutmeg and mash them and serve in the same manner as mashed potatoes (only no milk). If Grandmother was feeling exceptionally ambitious she would sometimes make a squash pie in the same manner as making a pumpkin pie and on rare occasions she would make an indian pudding from the squash. For the turbins and acorns she would cut them lengthwise, clean the seeds out, then place them face down on a cookie sheet with a bit of water and bake about 40 minutes in a moderate oven, then turn them right side up and put butter & honey in the cavity and bake another 15 to 20 minutes. But my abolute favorite way of fixing acorns came in late November right after we butchered hogs..Grandmother would cut acorns lengthwise, clean the seeds out, then stuff the cavity with pork sausage and bake for an hour. To this day that remains my favorite way to fix acorn squash.

im in massachusetts. i don’t even know how this happened we’ve not thrown any peach pits or planted anything over there, i noticed it yesterday.