I almost literally ran into a hummer on Saturday. He was checking out the purple bee balm, cannas (yellow one and tangerine one)and the red daylilies. We stared at each other for 30 seconds at only an arm's distance before he flew away. It never occured to me that Downey Woodpeckers would feed from Hummer feeders.

Hi Kids, Happy New Year to you all. I saw my first Hawk in the yard today. I think it was a Northern Goshawk. I got a few pictures of it which I will post as soon as I am able. It was beautiful. It sounds like we are all enjoying the birds. The worms I always kept on hand for the Blues were live mealworms. I know you can get the freeze dried, but I have always used the live ones. They are not gross at all. They are small, only about an inch, dry and easy to handle...no slime. I order them on line and they arrive in a bag, inside a box. I take them out, put them in a shallow plastic container that has a lid and, put them in the lower part of the refrig. They last for a long time. I would even feed them apples so they stayed plump and happy. I think I got 5,000 for about $15. The Blues LOVED them. I was lucky enough to have a Flicker visit during my PFW count this past week. I was so excited. We seem to have a mini flock of 3 that now visit the suet feeder just about every day. They are so beautiful. I'll try to post the pictures of the Hawk. I would like to know if you all agree wtih my ID of it as a Goshawk. sooey

My Flicker box is up and I am interested to see if anything notices it. The Red Bellied Woodpeckers are around here everyday and I know they are interested in nesting because I see them picking fights with each other, drumming and calling. They come here to get the suet which makes them notice other things in the yard. At least thats the plan. I have never seen the Downey Woodpeckers look at my box in spite of the fact that they must fly over it many times each day coming and going to the suet feeder. The chicadees are around again multiple times each day. They were here weeks ago and there was a spell were they were not here for awhile. I have some boxes with small entrance holes they can use so hopefully they will pick one of them and be safe from the larger birds.

well, the horns were definitely more like the head of the lark, but you are right I would have noticed the specific markings of a mature male. Horned larks are not really in our area except rarely in the winter. Streaked larks are around but I have never seen one. Probably more likely would be juvenile house finch since I have oodles of finches. thanks