The hummingbirds seem to have left for the season now - I haven't seen any since just before the big rains (northeaster and Hurricane Kyle). I'll keep the feeder up for a few weeks in case a migrant hummer comes through hungry. With all the fall vegetation it's hard to see all the birds. Except of course for the turkeys which stand out in any vista. Usually the turkeys stroll into the yard, but few days ago they were all riled up, probably by neighborhood dogs, and I heard a lot of yoyking in the woods. I went out to fill the feeders and spread seed on the ground, but I couldn't see any turkeys. Until I happened to look up, and there was a big turkey perched in a pitch pine above me. It flew off into the woods and soon after the whole flock walked in for dinner. I guess they wanted to make sure food was ready before they took a chance on the ground. And on the other end of the size scale, the House Sparrows are bopping around and having pool parties. Aside from these, I have cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatches, a few Blue Jays and doves and I saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker last week. I think a hawk flew by this morning. Claire

I know exactly what you mean, Cathy. THis reminds me of a bittersweet moment I had several years ago. We had a redtailed hawk nesting across from the house. It was fascinating getting to watch the youngsters grow into young adults. Once I was poking around at the base of the tree and came across a freshly killed shorebird. It had puncture wounds but was not even partially eaten. I am assuming the adults brought it to the nest, but why it was never consumed will remain a mystery. I had absolutely no clue what it was, but after doing a bit of some reading I was guessing it to be a golden plover. I did the ziploc freezer bag thing and took it to a local Audubon member locally and he pretty well agreed on the id. These birds only come through on migration...you'd normally never see them. SO here was one lying dead under a hawk nest in a hickory tree in the middle of the woods. Maybe it was at the reclaimed mine lakes noth or west of us and got picked off by the redtail. Take advantage of the opportunities as they present themselves I guess.

I have really enjoyed reading some of these older threads, there is a lot of good information in them. I really enjoy gardening for wildlife but my gardens are a little behind some of the other posters here. I would love to see pictures of how your gardens have turned out Rita (and anybody else), if you ever get around to it. Re the catbirds - they have always hung around in my yard, because of the plantings and the birdbaths. They seem to take a LOT of baths! This winter I put up a Suet Log right outside a window and the catbirds love the homemade suet mixture, so I get to see them up close and personal. They do seem to be curious about what I'm doing in the yard sometimes, kind of like the Chickadees. I also enjoy their pretty songs when they aren't making that whiny cat sound. Also I dug out an old Burning Bush and replaced it with a 6 foot Serviceberry this Spring (BIG improvement). The berries are ripening and the Catbirds are on the Serviceberry every day. They are fun birds to have around!

Thanks, Jane, for the references. I found the sites: Carl Strang's June 2009 entry and Stanford group essay on Cowbirds. I'm a little skeptical about Strang's statement on instinctual behavior - it may be true but it sounds more like a belief not based on any science. (Just a quibble on my part - if he'd said the juvenile cowbirds 'appear' to seek out other cowbirds, based on his observations, I wouldn't have been annoyed - but ascribing the behavior to 'instinct' is a jump too far). A very interesting fact in the Stanford essay is that only about 3 percent of cowbird eggs actually result in adults! That's major mortality. The cowbird female just keeps laying eggs and eggs and eggs ... "An average female lays about 80 eggs, 40 per year for two years. About 3 percent of those 80 eggs end up as adults -- an average of 2.4 adults per female. Clearly, such numbers more than compensate for the excessive loss of eggs and young in the nests of inappropriate hosts." I wonder how the current situation differs from the earlier situation when the cowbirds evolved to follow the bison herds and couldn't hang around to set up a proper nest without dropping behind and struggling to find food for themselves and the young. That behavior probably was dependent on the migration patterns of the bison, but nowadays the cowbirds have the luxury of being able to stay in the same area as their young, even if they don't get involved in the raising of them. As far as which came first, the parasitic behavior or the adaptation to it, I would think that the ability to lay so many eggs and the rapid maturation of the young would come early. There's an interesting entry in the Birds of North America Online site (subscription only) saying that "Most fledgling losses occurred 1 or 2 d after leaving nest". There are a lot of unknowns here, but it's an interesting topic for study. I'm glad I don't have to do the research myself, it would drive me crazy trying to pull together all of the variables. Claire