I used to have bird feeders, but not since we have had an active population of black bears. While I like having them around, I don't want to train them to think that our house = food. Although the bears hibernate, they are awake before there are many food sources for seed eaters, and I hate to habituate the birds to my feeders and then have to remove them in early spring. I do want to put out a heated bird bath for winter, though, and may try a suet feeder since about the time I would have to bring in the feeder due to the bears waking up, there would be insects available for the suet eaters. We do have a lot of birds, but they don't spend as much time near the house as they would if we had feeders. I do plant for the birds and often have nests in shrubs near the house, seed eating birds on plants where I've let the seed heads stand, and insect eaters in the shrubbery. Purple martins eat flying bugs, so that is one of the reasons folks put up houses for them. Since you plan to put up bird houses, read up about the requirements for a house that the birds will use, the preferred size openings for different birds, and how best to site them since different types of birds look for different set-ups. Here's some general information on bird houses from the National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/How-to-Help/Garden-for-Wildlife/Gardening-Tips/Attracting-Nesting-Birds.aspx The link below is from Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's Project Nest Watch. If you go to the LEARN tab in the upper right part of the page, there are various articles about bird houses and landscaping for bird habitat that you may find useful. Until you have more shrubs or small trees near your feeders for landing spots, you can put a lage tree branch or old Christmas tree in a pot and fill the pot with rocks or gravel to hold it in place. Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell's Project Nest Watch

I love all these photographs, I can look at them nonstop all day long. I live out in Western MA and have a few feeding stations up, one that contains BOSS and Safflower seeds, a thistle sock and a double suet feeder. Lately my feeders are packed with different song birds, chickadees, titmice, pine siskins, finches, white breasted nuthatches, dark eyed juncos, male and female cardinals, although I believe there's only one male cardinal that I keep seeing and along with the two females. I also get occasional house sparrows but lately, they seem to be staying away. I have a bluebird house up in hopes of luring a pair to my yard to raise a family but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Yesterday I was home for the day and sitting in my living room and out my bay window in the front across the street, were two Pileated Woodpeckers, the first I've ever seen. They were working on this one tree for about 2-3 hours, one on each side of the tree and they managed to do a fantastic job carving out a couple of cavities, I was very impressed at how hard they worked. Only wish my camera had a better lense. I've had red bellied, downie and hairy woodpeckers at my suet feeders but never was lucky enough to witness a pileated so close and two for that matter, it was very exciting. Please keep the pictures coming, I so enjoy looking at them and love to hear that there are bluebirds not to far from where I live. Fingers are crossed that they come to visit my yard in the spring. Linda

With the Cuddeback camera, every morning seems like Christmas..I can hardly wait to see what I have! Last night's photos: 2-23-09, Pond trail, female Gray Fox, 9:26 p.m. From Cuddeback trail camera photos-wildlife on Picazo Farm pond trail 2-24-09, Pond trail, young male Red Fox, 1:21 a.m. From Cuddeback trail camera photos-wildlife on Picazo Farm pond trail 2-24-09, Pond trail, female Gray Fox, 5:31 a.m. From Cuddeback trail camera photos-wildlife on Picazo Farm pond trail I took photos of the jumble of tracks in front of the Cuddeback camera to establish the genders of the foxes in the photos 2-24-09, mixed fox tracks; Round-toed Gray Fox below, triangular Red Fox tracks above From Cuddeback trail camera photos-wildlife on Picazo Farm pond trail 2-24-09, Red Fox tracks, showing slight inner step with hind foot, showing him to be a young male (male's shoulders are wider than female's, so the hind foot, which lands on top of the front foot track, tracks slightly to the inside) From 2-24-09, Tracks and scat 2-24-09, female Gray Fox tracks, showing hind foot stepping slightly to the outside to account for wider hips From 2-24-09, Tracks and scat The young female coyote's tracks came down the hill behind the horse shed by the kitchen, then trotted up the pond trail to the first corner before cutting off through the woods. I followed the male Red Fox's tracks further down the logging road until the young female coyote's tracks reappeared on the logging road further back on our property. A male coyote's tracks from the day before came down the hill and onto the logging road at a track "intersection"-another great spot for a Cuddeback camera. I followed the female coyote's tracks until she turned off the trail, straight down the hill, then I circled my land and found where she crossed a log high above the creek gully onto the property in the first place. From 2-24-09, Tracks and scat then went up the hill where she must have circled around to come out by our kitchen From 2-24-09, Tracks and scat I even slithered down a steep, snowy hillside, hanging onto shrubs high above the creek, carrying my expensive camera, to investigate a den in the side of the mountain, but only a squirrel's tracks were near the entrance. For three hours I tramped around our property writing down track and stride measurements, taking hundreds of track photos, etc. I'm really nosy like that; I told DuBois that if the animals were humans they'd have a restraining order on me for stalking and photographing them. To get back on the forum subject (I really should find a wildlife forum for these photos)-despite 17 degrees this morning, the Red-Shouldered Hawk is yelping again to declare his territory, Cardinals have started their "cheer, cheer!"s, Titmice have begun their "Peter-peters" and even the Carolina Chickadees are doing "see-bee, see bay"s now. So, ready or not, spring is coming

I'm enjoying so many American gold finches, pine siskins, red polls, house finches, purple finches, warblers, occasional blue jays, woodpeckers, red- and white-breasted nuthatches, and various "visitors" this winter. I feed both black oil sunflower seed and nyjer seed, but in separate feeders. The nyjer is in an "upside down" finch feeder, only the American gold finches can get the seed out, and then only one seed at a time. I certainly cuts down on the waste and the feeder hogs. The other thistle lovers can pick up the dropped seeds from the ground. I offer black oil sunflower seeds in several types of feeders according to the species I'm feeding. It's the favorite seed of nearly all the birds, but certain birds prefer certain types of feeders. I have a large hopper feeder for BOSS, and a smaller one for peanuts (for the chickadee-dee-dees and nuthatches). I also offer BOSS in a tray feeder during the coldest months, and in a mesh feeder that the woodpeckers like. Besides the BOSS, nyjer, and a few shelled peanuts, I offer suet in four different feeders. Woodpeckers don't like to "share" and I found out by setting out more feeders I have many happy woodpeckers.