I've had a fabulous turnout of migrating warblers, etc this fall! Or maybe because I'm too pooped to do anything but sit at the window and stare, I'm seeing more this year. I still have hummers, even a few males although it's mostly females and younguns. Around here they say to leave your feeders up until end of November, that it won't keep the ruby-throats from migrating and there are more and more sightings of west coast hummers who end up on the east coast in late fall and early winter. There was an Anna and a rufous hummer in Ohio in the last two years. One showed up in December and stayed until the middle of January. Nobody is quite sure why there is an increase of these hummers but there are more and more reports each year. It would be fun to see a hummer in December but I'm afraid I would worry myself sick! Most of my summer birds are still here. The wood thrush no longer sings (sniff, sniff) but I still hear his little "Pip, pip, pip". I've seen both the summer and scarlet tanagers in the last week - both had molted into their winter colors -why can't they show themselves in their pretty summer attire? I've added two new yard birds this fall - a warbling vireo and a yellow-bellied flycatcher which is one of my rarest yard birds. I've had a nice variety of warblers so far - american redstarts, bay breasted, black-throated green, black-and-white, blackburnian, black poll, blue-winged, canada, cape may, chestnut-sided, magnolia, ovenbird, prairie and tennesee and vireos - red-eyed, warbling, white-eyed, and yellow-throated and a swainsons thrush. I also had a juvenile rose-breasted grosbeak, not sure if it's a migrant or from the pair that I saw this summer. I do love see the fall migrants but I am really going to miss summer ... and the mosquitos and the heat and the drought ....

I considered shade cloth but I can't speak to how well it will allow thermals to pass through it. I can hang a piece of bird netting when I get to the farm this afternoon to see how it does blocking the sun. There are many different types of netting available with tighter weaves and larger strands if the sun is the problem. My concern is giving heat an easy way out of the greenhouse. Every greenhouse I visit in this part of the country has a real problem staying cool in the summer even with shade cloth and white painted glass Thanks for the reply Al

Well, that's good to hear. I don't have the native lantana, though I have been on the look out for it, but I do have 20+ Beautyberry sprouts growing in flats and three others ready to go into the ground. Still, it's probably going to be a season or longer before they're big enough to really have much draw. And no, I'm not going to be planting all 20+ sprouts. Not even half of them. I really don't know what I'm going to do with them all. Perhaps hold on to them in case I ever become social enough to attend a swap or something. I bumped into a vendor at the Ocala Spring Festival last month and was asking her about the native lantanas and she mentioned that L. drepessa is not really recognized as a native species anymore. Apparently, according to her, it is popular opinion that L. depressa has been too cross-pollinated with L. camara to truly be the natives. She claimed that she had some L. depessa, but didn't bring them to the sale because of the debate.

The fruit and insect eaters, (Robins,CWW) the breeding season is over and they begin to flock up at this time. The seeds eaters like golden finches have late breeding seasons (when their food is abundant). They also have alot of natural sources of seeds in late summer. So they don't need to visit feeders as often. The omnivores (Cardinals, RWBB, Grackles) tend to ebb and flow with local food sources. I watched a Cardinal pluck newly emerged Cicadas (still in the shell) from the trees in the backyard yesterday. The unique thing this year has been the large number of swifts and swallows around. We have had a bumper crop of dragon flies this year and these guys are loving it. The moral of the story is follow the food and you'll find your birds.