Thanks Renee for the info on the hummers eating bugs & apples won't hurt them. It is 1st yr I've seen them do that,also 1st time I've been finding dead scarabs- I'll look them up!! Someone asked about feeder, mine is from Green Arrow Nursery & it looks like an upside- down soda bottle with red plastic circle with thin place to stand so they can rest. I can't stand to see poor little guys wings going nuts trying to eat. They need rest!! Besides easier to look at them. But they wouldn't use the bottle as there were no flowers so after a week I took it down, dumped out the contents(I had changed the water couple of times) cleaned it well & got out the yellow Patio paint you get at Michael's or Joanne's & I made 5 petals around each hole let it dry until next afternoon & they went straight for my yellow flowers!It's easy to clean & bees don't hang around it like they do the "drip spout kind- I'm very allergic to bees) I clean it with a toothbrush & sometimes bleach being sure to rinse it at least 3 times so they don't get sick. I'm going to poke a hole in a straw hat I got at TS & put over the top of the feeder, I think I saw that idea in a Bird's & Bloom or maybe English gardening magazine, I've been going through some I was given several yrs ago trying to clean out! The hat is supposed to shade the sugar water & then they will go under it so hawks or predators can't see them. We have some falcons as close to foothills. Love watching them do their circle 8's -so graceful! But we have fewer scrub jays, & crows or ravens because of them coming down here last 2 yrs. Less water in the mountains for them.

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

Bella---That's such good advise. I cover my beans, too, here on the southern Or coast. We have always had lots of ravens around in the fields and down by the stream, but the last couple of years some have moved into the yard. Especially One raven. He/she comes each evening and inspects everything that happened in his/her yard that day. Goes to the bird baths and washes and eats things it flew in with. Never knew they did that. Then makes a tour around the garden and yard. Last summer the parents brought three young ones each day to play, and I mean play, around in the yard. I got great laughs from their antics. Hope they do that again this summer. They are wonderful to watch but you DO have to protect veggies----beans and corn especially---until they are high enough so they leave them alone.

CindyMac, I have to retract my favorable comments re: Handmaids Tale as we just finished watching the 2nd season. Without giving anything away, some character's took a bizarre explicable turn which cheapened the story. And it was torture porn without any emotional relief. To lighten up, we are watching THE QUEER EYE on Netflix. Although some of the antics are a bit MUCH, the transformations are enjoyable.