Oh yeah, the hummies will chase away anything! They zip and zoom around butterflies and the butterflies try to follow them as well. I also have several feeders hanging from my back porch eave...where the suppport beams are made of cedar...of which I have those big black carpenter bees make holes in. Those bees try to get into their holes and the hummies chase them away. I like that. Of course, the hummies will 'try' to scare off the mockingbird and great kiskadees - talk about a real territorial battle!!! Guess the most fun is just sitting back and watching them chase each other all over the place. They are getting quite bold and hover under my porch roof. You can see them doing that air dance fractions of inches from the ceiling. I keep trying to get photos but am always out in the yard when they do that. ~ Cat

Ironically, the weeds, overgrowth, and tangle of vegetation are very attractive to most birds. It provides them with cover and nesting sites, and there are usually berries, seeds, and insects in the vegetation as well. They don't care that the plants are too close together, or whether a bed is edged perfectly or sprayed for weeds. I had a very overgrown yard when I moved here 10 years ago, with many invasive plants. The only thing I continually remove are invasive plants, and in stages because I've done most of the work myself by hand. Sometimes I wish it had gone faster, and been "overhauled" as you are doing, but I tried to preserve habitat. I left some thickets of vegetation, and left "snags" or dead trees up in the back yard purposely to provide nesting habitat for cavity nesters (and Black-capped chickadees are cavity nesters). I had Bluebirds nesting in snags here for 2 years, until the snags fell over. I also leave up some dead branches for perching and insect value. I would suggest that you go over to All about birds, and read about the BCCD. Also observe the little chickadee's habits in your yard, where they like to "hang out", and perhaps leave some habitat intact throughout the overhaul.

i get a variety of different woodpeckers here. In the winter when there are not bugs and insects and ants and worms for them to eat they switch to seeds and suet and nuts and dried fruits. you can put nuts or bird seed mix in a tray or platform hung in a tree or from a shepards hook. You can mix your seed and nut mix in some lard and peanut butter and press it into a suet cage. I also have several pine logs about 3 foot tall that i stand on end and the birds land on the stumps and eat from them. i also have a pan of seeds and nuts on the back porch rail that the woodpeckers and chickadees and siskins land on and eat I have one flicker woodpecker that hangs from a feeder and eats millet and cracked corn. Some people mix bird seed or nuts or rainens in chunky peanut butter and press it into holes drilled in a hanging branch and call it a suet log. In early spring the young Lewis's woodpeckers i get eat the Jelly and jam from a bowl i put out for the orioles and tanagers. i make a mix of lard and peanut butter and nuts and mixed bird seed thickened to a stiff ball and press it into the suet cage and hang it out in winter for the downey and he hairy woodpeckers. This winter there is a red naped sapsucker hanging around that loves suet mix flavored with molasses or sorgum pressed into the woodpecker block cage. the flickers especially in spring and summer eat on the ground and cleanup spilt seeds and nuts from the feeders.

A couple of cool items about the Black Capped Chickadee * They are adapted to the cold. To conserve energy, they can lower their body temperature by 10 degrees when resting. There's even a species of Chickadee call Boreal Chickadee that live even further North. * They cache food in several places and have good memory of where and when they cached it. This is so they can eat the food before it goes bad. * Chickadee often arrive in small flocks which has a hierarchy. * Studies have shown that they only eat about 20% of their food from the feeder. Taking away a feeder won't aversely affect them. In really cold climate, it will increase their survival rate. * They are often harbinger of other birds to the bird feeder. They are good at finding food and other birds watch them. * Their beaks are too small to crack a seed, they carry it to a branch and break it open by pecking on it. * They are fairly bold and can be trained to eat out of your hand.