Fantastic photos of the bluebirds and waxwings together. That is luck to see them together, let alone get a good photo. We have waxwings here all summer, but so often they are high up in trees, most people don't notice them. They like black cherries, and when i canoe the river i see them flycatching alot. And congrats newyorkrita on your bird garden paying off. Glad the Wentworths were well used, so many people report birds not touching the highbush cranberries. I saw cardinals picking at them once, but i think they were only after the pits inside. I may have to think about planting a Cardinal Candy viburnum. Winterberries - ive never had those last late in the year. I had a robin that would camp out until they were all gone, in December.

Hello, I live in western mass and can tell you those blue beauties are all right here in my backyard! LOL. Nesting away, eating, having a ball. Honestly at any given moment there is at least 10! Can't wait to see the babies!!!!!! As for crows, no not too many. Anytime I see them it's usually only two, sometimes three. I do see them everyday though, sometimes in my yard. I seem to forget how big they are :~) Keilamarie Keilamarie

Do not be too quick to dismiss the lowly sparrow. I grew up on a dairy farm in N.E.Ohio and I have always had a passing interest in bird watching, however like most people I erroneously thought a sparrow is a sparrow, is a sparrow and lumped them into one of two broad categories, song sparrows and house sparrows, all of which were often considered at best a minor nuisance. Last June I officially retired and took up nature photography as a retirement hobby. Over the summer I spent most of my time hiking the woods, meadows and swampy areas, but when the summer birds migrated last fall I then set up feeders and turned my attention to the birds that i could attract. I typically set my camera on a tripod zeroed in on a feeder or a ground feeding location, then I sit motionless with a remote shutter release in my pocket and snap pictures of the birds as they come in. In the course of taking 2 or 300 pictures a day, it goes without saying that I get a lot of shots that contain sparrows as well as the more desirable birds. Later while editing the photos I began to notice that many of the sparrows had what i thought were strange or unusual markings. In early October my Mother presented me with a book called "Birds of Ohio" by McCormac & Kennedy, published by the Lone Pine Press (ISBN 13:978-1-55105-392-9)). From this book I discovered that their are over twenty different species of Sparrows common to Ohio, two of which have red heads such as you describe. I then got another book called "The Sparrows of the united States and Canada published by Princeton University Press (ISBN 13:978-0-125-9897-1) in which they list over 62 species of Sparrows native to the U.S. & Canada. In addition, i learned that the House Sparrow is not native to North America and is officially not listed as a Sparrow, but rather they are listed as "Old World Sparrows" which includes another 37 species that have been introduced to North America, primarily from Europe. From my personal experience I would challenge everyone, rather than seek ways to discourage the lowly Sparrow, take a closer look and you might be amazed at what you see, and if the Sparrows are consuming all the seed in your feeders, do as I have done, put up more feeders because all of God's creatures gotta eat. Currently I am going through 5 30lb bags of wild bird seed a month, not to mention another two bushels of corn that i put in chicken feeders out in the meadow for the wild turkeys but then when i consider how many hours I spend watching those birds, it is really rather cheap entertainment.

I'm in the Midwest too. I buy mealworms at Lowes and mix them with raisins to distribute to the robins that didn't migrate. Have a heated water dish as well, though I mostly see the squirrels using it. Lots of snow here. I've been scraping snow away from the feeder area all week. Got blue jays, cardinals, grackles, pigeons, dark eyed juncos, sparrows, house finches, crows, lots of squirrels visiting regularly. Have a variety of feeders. I scrape areas on the ground to toss black oil seeds so the more shy visitors. I don't bother with the striped sunflower seeds because they are too tough for the smaller birds to crack open. I mix grit and fine sand with the seed that is sprinkled on the deck rail so it slows down the squirrels. It also helps the doves and other birds who will eat the stuff off the road if they can't find it elsewhere. Peanut ring and suet feeders. I smear peanut butter on rice cakes and put these in the suet feeder. Going to experiment with making my own suet. Anyone seen the Cornel Live cams? I like looking at the feeders they use to get ideas. A link that might be useful: http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/all-cams/