Hi every one! Can you believe it? I still cannot believe my luck and I was there!!! Again while on my way to work this morning there was someone white and *quite* chunky looking flying across the road. I pulled over, backed up a bit, and admired a stunningly beautiful snowy Owl perched on top of a utility pole. This one was much larger than the first Owl I had seen and was more heavily barred. The barring seemed darker / black. I believe this Owl was a female as her face, nape of the neck and center of the breast were white. From what I was able to research that does describe the female snowy. Maybe this was an immature but I did not find much description of them. Any way ... I am 113% sure this was another Snowy Owl! What a wonderful start to the day! As my luck would have it, I did not have my camera in the car for the past week. Had the camera been there then for sure the Owl would NOT! LOL! So that was a great start to the day. I was 20 minutes late to work but work is just soooo over-rated. LOL! The rest of the day was downhill but who cares? I saw another Snowy Owl! The Owl was about 1 mile south of the earlier sighting on Rt. 83 in N. Ridgeville again. C3D and 2 Snowy sightings this year!

I think the chickadees, titmice and downies have had a bumper crop this year! I've never seen (or heard) so many dee-dee-dee's before, it's so fun! So far I've only seen one young red-bellied but they maybe only bringing one at a time to the feeder. And just one young cardinal - which really is not a bad thing, I can only imagine what it will be like if all 70 cardinals from last winter bring all there babies to the feeders - I'll have to take out a loan for birdseed. I've also seen house wren, phoebe and catbird fledglings. This evening I was following a spread-wing damselfly through the woods and I heard a bobwhite! We haven't had any in several years so I was really thrilled to hear it. I thought about trying to track it down but the mosquitos were eating me up alive! And the buck was stomping and snorting at me since I was standing in his bed :^)

Interesting about the shells! I'm sure I've seen shells in open places before too. I have at least 4 breeding pairs of goldfinches visiting the nyjer feeder now. I've seen 6 at once of which 4 were males, and 4 females together at a different time so who knows how many are around. I found a pair of Grey Catbirds in my cedar this morning. They looked like they were building a nest, although I doubt it would be in my cedar because it's pretty big and open.

I'm sure your landscape lures more birds into your yard and makes them feel safer when they are visiting your feeders, Gary-. It's great to hear that you have so many wonderful species coming by. I get quite a few goldfinches at a time, too. They seem happiest in flocks, like the chipping sparrows do. But mine LOVE the thistle sock. They will eat sunflower seeds, etc, from the tray feeder, too, but the sock will sometimes be completely covered by clinging birds. Last year they emptied several completely. And they stayed until they were almost in full breeding plumage. It was fun to watch them go from grayish brown and black to brilliant yellow and black. Yep, they are cheerful little birds that brighten the yard, and I'm always sorry to see them go. But when they have buntings with them, both painted and indigo, it's even better. I noticed last year, btw, that the indigo buntings spent as much time picking through the grass as they did on the feeder tray. They were down there with the chipping sparrows an awful lot. Have you seen that, too? Marcia