I feed the birds all year sort of. They start with cleaning off the sunflowers that they plant the previous fall and continue to clean off the grasses, berries, and corn that I sometimes grow just for them. Of course I have water out all the time for them and a heated dish in the winter. I feed the big birds cat food with bread or cereal in it. They get any left overs when I cook a turkey or ham. I make my own concoction of peanut butter, prunes, hulled sunflower seeds, rolled oats, millet, black oil sunflower and a few other things they like to pick at. I buy millet, black oil sunflower and striped sunflower by the sack and keep it in large bins in the hall along with peanuts,hulled sunflower seeds, oats and rabbit pellets. Once in a while I will give them a treat of meal worms from the petstore or cut up fruit. And sometimes I will get a seed bell or spray millet just to watch them. I also ground up dry catfood last year and put it in the feeder. The little birds get much needed fat and protein to keep warm that way. I have the usual black and white feather dusters, the blue jays, lots of chickadees (black capped and boreal), nuthatches (red and white breasted), woodpeckers, northern flickers, juncos, finches, sparrows, the odd grosbeaks, waxwings, and redpolls and I even had a kestral last spring. Not many crows unless it is a really warm winter. My computer is in the corner of the front bedroom where there are the old corner windows. I feed the birds from about 5 feeders and baskets hanging from the big white spruce about 2 feet from the corner of the house here. I feed the rabbits under the tree and the dish feeders on the fence from big heavy ceramic dishes. It is such a routine for me to feed the birds after I feed the dogs on winter mornings. My neighbours are used to the crazy lady in her fleece pjs out feeding the birds every morning and the dogs go out and wait by the fence for the maggies to drop food for them. Quite the scene to watch! The maggies are very comical and they literally talk to me. I can't stand to see anything go hungry or be cold and the little birds seem to like to feast under the protective branches of this 50 foot spruce. My neighbour across the street says she likes to sit with her coffee in the morning and watch the bunnies and birds eating. And that reminds me: Must find a bale of hay for the bunnies. Last year I fed a cat all winter but coudln't catch her. She left me mice most mornings under the kennel....... I hope we have a mild winter or at least get some snow. It is bitterly cold without a little insulation. Ginny

You might try putting it in a large box and putting it outside to see if it can fly away. Keep an eye on it if you think there is a danger of cats discovering it before it's ready to go.

Hi, welcome to what can become a fascinating hobby. You can be involved in birding as little or as much as you like with any kind of digital camera with at least a 10 X zoom. Binoculars and point and shoot cameras start in the hundreds and run into the thousands if you switch to DSLR cameras, and the lenses can cost as much or more. But you don't have to take photos to enjoy birds, and I bot an excellent light-weight 24X pair of bins for $100 If you just want to feed birds instead of going out into their habitat, there are inexpensive feeder bird booklets in WalMart in the birdseed section. You can feed black oil sunflower seed in tube feeders, maybe have a hanging suet feeder and an inexpensive bird bath, but some people on this forum put in sunken pools or buy solar powered bird bath fountains, so you can pay anything there also. Left alone, Nature stays in balance, but when humans start putting out food things can quickly get out of hand. If you use tray feeders or feed scraps, dog food, cracked corn, peanuts, or cheap bird seed, you might quickly flood the neighborhood with aggressive non-native species such as Starlings and House Sparrows, as well as Grackles, Blue Jays, squirrels, chipmunks, and if you spread food on the ground, probably raccoons and rats..all quickly breeding and multiplying on your coin, and preying on the native song-bird population you want to watch. I only keep a couple of feeders under my eaves because I prefer to do my birding where birds are not artificially fed. Most feeder birds eat seeds or suet and I prefer to observe/photograph warblers and vireos, if I can do it. If you bird in a wildlife sanctuary, or near a wetland or ocean you might be able to bird from your car; I took many wonderful photos from the car when we visited FL over New Year. In fact, that's my preferred method now that it's tick season! That can work if you have a large bird that lets you approach, or a camera with strong zoom, preferably all three.. Here's a photo taken yesterday coming back from swimming on Poppy Mnt. We turned off the car engine and rolled forward to observe these wild turkeys crossing the road ahead From 3-21-09, Poppy

I hope I don't see any at my bird feeder. Mike filled my bird feeder really full for me last evening, so my birds are good for the bad weather. I don't think I have ever seen a bird like that. Thanks for posting about it. Sue