It's not my invention, it's basically a variation of the magic halo, which has been available for quite some times. You can see description at: http://www.sialis.org/halo.htm Unfortunately, the ring is not so effective against breeding pairs of HOSP. The site does have various ideas to deter nesting. I don't have experience with repelling grackles and starlings from nestboxes, but I do notice that starlings do not like to have something that block their view of the sky. A dome of some sort over suet feeder for example seems to deter them. However, it's hard to verify since Starlings don't seemed to come to my yard. Paul

Nice bird to be the first one of the New Year! I've had Fox Sparrows visit the yard occasionally. Once a pair of Fox Sparrows hung around here for a couple weeks in the winter, which was the longest they ever stayed. But they seem to move on quickly in this area (eastern Mass.). I thought it was cute how they frantically scratch on the ground looking for stuff to eat. Even scratchier than the White throat sparrows.

Great shots! I have yet to see an owl. Very early the other morning I was outside at twilight and out of the corner of my eye I saw something with huge wings fly into the oak tree in my yard. At first I thought it must have been a hawk, but then thought it was really too early so maybe it was an owl. I tried for a long time to find it, but couldn't. When I told my sister about it she said that they tend to blend right into the tree and maybe he was still there..

Nice! I'm looking forward to spring as well. Here's my back yard. This is last fall after I finished planting the back of the yard. It's on the edge of the property looking toward the house. In the foreground are two nannyberry shrubs (a viburnum related to cranberry) and then an area where I've planted a prairie garden and covered it with compost. You can see where I've left space for a path to walk through, and I plan to put a bench there. Back towards the house there is where the garden starts, and I had started planting there last year. It's nice in the summer sitting out on the patio, where I can watch the bird feeders and enjoy being surrounded by native plants. The area where I'm standing, with the nannyberry and the small post right beyond it, used to be completely infested with buckthorn and many invasive weeds. It took me 2 years to clear it all out. Now that the area is opened up a bit, I'm hoping that I'll have bluebirds nesting again (saw many here during fall migration.) I left this post standing as a spot for the bluebirds to perch, and to hang a nice sign. The post used to be completely obscured by buckthorn.