It is so funny to watch the "baby" birds that are as big as their parents. They hop around behind their parents,flap their wings and shake their bodies and chirp loudly in an instinctual behavior that elicits a feeding response. I feel sure the parents are thinking the same thing that humans think when adult children return to the nest after fledging. "I'm tired! Go find your own way like I did when I was your age!" Tee hee!

Interesting about the kinds of seed everyone feeds. I feed primarily black oil sunflower 9expensive at Lowe's, but cheap at Tractor Supply - ($15 for 50 lbs). Black oil seems to be the preferred feed for cardinals, chickadees carolina wren, downy woodpecker, mourning dove, flickers, tufted titmouse,bluebirds, and an occasional jay. Sparrows feed on it, but prefer the hulled seed, as do the chickadees and wrens. An added bonus - the sunflower hull of the black oil seed seems to help the compost, and it mulches nicely in the flower beds! Used to get that weedy flower in GA, when I didn't use the sterile seed. You are also probably getting thistle seed in there. I feed probably 80 pounds of thistle in the winter, for the finches, primarily gold and red, with some buntings showing up in spring. If you feed thistle be very careful to get the sterile seed. its fertile and tends to fall below the feeder (doves and mice will eat it). I actually like the look of thistle, and the fact that it attracts bees, so my thistle feeders at the wood line all are not sterile. Come spring, I will get hundreds of thistle plants, that by summer will be beautiful purple flowers for the bees, and come late summer, natural seed for birds passing through. If you can tolerate the spiny leaves, and thistle 'fluff'(which bluebirds use all winter here for nesting), let it grow, it really is a pretty plant If you want to get rid of that 'smell' below the feeder, avoid seed with corn, when I fed a mix with corn, the corn would sometimes sit and ferment, or, as you discovered, grow. Corn here, whole or cracked, is an attractant of crows. I do throw cracked corn in the woodline to keep them away from the sunflower. Using cracked corn away from my garden, also keeps rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and racoons at bay! Crack corn doesnt seem to grow into stalks either. It does, however seem to cause my grass to die, so I keep it in areas that I don't have plantings.

My Wish List... -Tomato- "Marmande VF" HEIRLOOM - Lycopersicon esculentum AMISH PASTE BANANA LEGS BESSER cherry BLACK SEA MAN BOX CAR WILLIE BRANDYWINE, BLACK BRANDYWINE, YELLOW BROWN BERRY CHERRY ROMA CHRISTMAS GRAPES COSMONAUT VOLKOV DIXIE GOLDEN GIANT TOMATO DJENA LEE`S GOLDEN GIRL EARLIANA FIRST PICK GARDEN PEACH GERMAN RED STRAWBERRY GREAT WHITE GREEN GRAPE HILLBILLY HUNGARIAN HEART TOMATO JAPANESE BLACK TRIFELE JAUNE FLAMMEE JEFFERSON GIANT LEMON DROP cherry LONG KEEPER MANITOBA MATT�S WILD CHERRY MOUNTAIN PRINCESS MULE TEAM NYAGOUS OREGON SPRING PINEAPPLE PLUM LEMON RED PEAR RUSSIAN BLACK SAUSAGE SILVERY FIR TREE SWISS ALPINE Tasmanian Chocolate TIFFIN MENNONITE TINY TIM WATERMELON BEEFSTEAK WHITE CHERRY WHITE WONDER WINDOW BOX RED -Tomatillo- PINEAPPLE TOMATILLO PURPLE TOMATILLO -Bee Balm- Any! -Melon- Watermelon - "Dixie Queen" HEIRLOOM - Citrullus lanatus Watermelon - "Congo" HEIRLOOM - Citrullus lanatus Cantaloupe - "Honey Rock" HEIRLOOM - Cucumis melo Cantaloupe - "Rocky Ford" HEIRLOOM - Cucumis melo -Beet- "Crosby Egyptian" HEIRLOOM - Beta vulgaris -Corn- "Golden Beauty" HEIRLOOM - Zea mays "Silver Queen" (White Corn) HEIRLOOM - Zea mays -Leek- "American Flag" HEIRLOOM - Allium ampeloprasum -Pea- "Thomas Laxton" HEIRLOOM - Pisum sativum "Oregon Sugar Pod II" HEIRLOOM - Pisum sativum -Swiss Chard- "Ruby Red" HEIRLOOM - Beta vulgaris -Herbs- ANGELICA HOREHOUND HYSSOP ST JOHN'S WORT VALERIAN -Squash- Pumpkin - Styrian -Columbine- Blue Barlow Barlow Pink Dorothy Rose -Berries- Goji Berry (always need more for genetic diversity) Cranberry - American Pilgrim Thornless Blackberry Bottom line: Anything that's your favorite,...heirloom veggie, flower, shrub or otherwise,... common or rare. I plan on doing a lot of sharing. - Cryptid

Okay, y'all--before I retired, I taught "sets" for decades in my math classes and I can certainly offer oodles of rationale behind my groupings! LOL Here's a new way to look at it if you wish (humor!)...for any item(s) that might be questionable as part of a set, well, the item(s) will automatically become Bizzo's birthday gift(s)! Ta-daaaaah! See? No "cheating!" Her birthday is Monday so this works out perfectly--she just got herself a bonus of more b'day stuff if anything doesn't fit into a set! :O) Celebrate the zero, Bizzo! As a former multi-subject teacher, you now have permission to *subtract* from your age, by one year, every year, until you are once again 21 years old! It's the new, creative, more gentle math!!! Smiles, Sooz