David, at least you are staying out of that other exotic Asian dove location, "This site is for consenting adults only and should only be accessed by adults over the age of 21." Or did you? I'm not sure if there is any "native" plant invasive in my yard or garden. Amongst the dozens of weeds, they're all from the "old world" (& then there's your Russian olive). I don't have a good excuse for the pleasure I had at learning that the black locust trees are considered invasive in western Europe. The islands are terribly impacted but we're told that the development of so many useful domestic species is a result of the size and diversity of the Eurasian landmass. The Suez canal or not, Africa is a part of that same landmass. Over in the tomato forum, Carolyn linked to an article on genetic diversity. The authors' idea was that one of the reasons for problems of low resistance to pests in the older varieties was that the tomato gene pool was isolated in Europe by limited importation of tomato seed centuries ago. Utilizing new strains from South America in plant breeding wasn't undertaken until the 1950's. Genes from resistant varieties were very successfully made use of after that. Also, hybrid vigor is significant in those older crosses. Seems like it sometimes takes the people of the old world to take what is here and then give it back to us in a more appreciated form. The Russell lupin is an example but I'm not sure what the people or fauna of New Zealand think of the lupin invading acres of land there. Or, what they think about the American wild turkey or California Valley quail, for that matter. I believe you make some use of the German brown trout and where'd these Chinese ring-neck pheasants come from? The wild turkey is around here in what must be record numbers. I doubt if it was ever here prehistorically. With global warming, maybe we'll get that lesser goldfinch up here. But, will the Bohemian waxwing still come south from Canada every Winter? Oh, gosh. I'd fly away myself out of sheer nervousness but where would I go? Steve's digits

Sounds like my yard. Today is day four of not filling my squirrel proof perch feeder I have a screened Nyjer feeder only. I also took down a nest in my soffit but there are still many crooks and crannies in my 1945 clapboard cottage. Don’t know what else to do. They even try to guard the birdbaths. I don’t want to harm them just push them to new area. I was starting to get Bluebirds but saw house finch chase it ☹️

I used to feed stale bread to the outside birds.My neighbors dad,who lived at the house part time after retiring to Pa,,,told me it was no good for the birds. So for the last 5 years I have bought wild bird seed,..A year or so ago my neighbor told me I needed to stop feeding them as they pooped on his 50 thousand dollar truck.I told him to F off...Months later I got a warning from town saying I can only feed them with a bird feeder,...I got one,,,,Then he told me not to feed them more than once a day.At 63,with a bad hip,I fed them if I happened to see it empty whenever that was.I got a ticket from town saying the food that falls to the ground as they eat,is illegal.,,,How can people be so mean?

Do not be too quick to dismiss the lowly sparrow. I grew up on a dairy farm in N.E.Ohio and I have always had a passing interest in bird watching, however like most people I erroneously thought a sparrow is a sparrow, is a sparrow and lumped them into one of two broad categories, song sparrows and house sparrows, all of which were often considered at best a minor nuisance. Last June I officially retired and took up nature photography as a retirement hobby. Over the summer I spent most of my time hiking the woods, meadows and swampy areas, but when the summer birds migrated last fall I then set up feeders and turned my attention to the birds that i could attract. I typically set my camera on a tripod zeroed in on a feeder or a ground feeding location, then I sit motionless with a remote shutter release in my pocket and snap pictures of the birds as they come in. In the course of taking 2 or 300 pictures a day, it goes without saying that I get a lot of shots that contain sparrows as well as the more desirable birds. Later while editing the photos I began to notice that many of the sparrows had what i thought were strange or unusual markings. In early October my Mother presented me with a book called "Birds of Ohio" by McCormac & Kennedy, published by the Lone Pine Press (ISBN 13:978-1-55105-392-9)). From this book I discovered that their are over twenty different species of Sparrows common to Ohio, two of which have red heads such as you describe. I then got another book called "The Sparrows of the united States and Canada published by Princeton University Press (ISBN 13:978-0-125-9897-1) in which they list over 62 species of Sparrows native to the U.S. & Canada. In addition, i learned that the House Sparrow is not native to North America and is officially not listed as a Sparrow, but rather they are listed as "Old World Sparrows" which includes another 37 species that have been introduced to North America, primarily from Europe. From my personal experience I would challenge everyone, rather than seek ways to discourage the lowly Sparrow, take a closer look and you might be amazed at what you see, and if the Sparrows are consuming all the seed in your feeders, do as I have done, put up more feeders because all of God's creatures gotta eat. Currently I am going through 5 30lb bags of wild bird seed a month, not to mention another two bushels of corn that i put in chicken feeders out in the meadow for the wild turkeys but then when i consider how many hours I spend watching those birds, it is really rather cheap entertainment.