Hi Iowagal, where in zone 4 are you? Your finches are either very hungry or really tame. We have 3 feeders hung in our tree and all I have to do is step out the door and they are gone. I am however able to watch quietly as the hummers feed in the summer while I am on my knees and weeding in the flower beds. Today is a windy cold day and the blue jays, sparrows, finches, and cedar wax wings are busy right outside our window. They really appreciate the heated water, don't they? Mary

Carol Oh my yes....I had forgotten about those egrets until you mentioned it. It was horrible and right across the street from an elementary school. Really was quite unbelievable that there could be so many of the nasty things. So no, the grackles are not as bad as that. But there are more of them in my area than any time before. I truly dislike them. Randy If I didn't live where I do I might be tempted to use like methods of grackle control but would likely end up in jail....haha. However they don't roost on my property they just visit and fly through all time. I really don't know where they are roosting. But don't have large enough trees on our property. I need to post another tread about the potential problem we do have here in our neighborhood and even worse than birds. COYOTES! Believe it or not my across the street neighbor saw two of them right up on her patio looking in the door recently. And her husband has seen the pair two different times with the neighbor's cat cornered! Now this is really crazy living where we live! G.M.

i asked a nursery guy the same question yesterday, why do BOP have brown around edges? he said some of it is wind blown,some of it is people brushing against it, some of it is brown spots due to not being able to dry out much between waterings.i think it's ok to cut some of the bad leaves off and it should send up new shoots.i think the big leaves just get battered. try cutting a couple off and see how it responds.he said that would be ok.

My DS was 6-7 and home from school sick in bed. We had a snow and everything was covered and freezing cold outside. DS called me into the bedroom and told me to look out at the bird on the telephone wire. The poor thing looked like he was frozen to the wire, but apparently not because after a while as we watched, he appeared to fall to the ground. DS asked me to go see what was wrong with the bird. So of course I bundled up, put on boots and gloves and went out on rescue. I brought the bird in and we could see that he had a grain of corn stuck in his throat. I managed to dislodge it and he was then ready to go. I let him out the door and he flew away. I've forgotten many of the things DS did to aggravate me, but I still remember that day when he had to know that one bird was helped. He is still like that, very caring. Sue