my neighbors & I are dealing with this now only it's a little sparrow....it's the same sparrow who has been walking around more than flying all winter. It flies to the scrub trees on our property line & sits & then comes down to my neighbors car. When she leaves it goes to mine, mine leaves it goes to my other neighbor. We all live in close proximity. All other times it stays at my neighbors chimney....Long , silver & very reflective. It also pecks at our house windows & all windows of the cars. The poop is ridiculous. Two of us have bags on our mirrors but it doesn't much help as it goes to the other windows. It's a pain in the butt having to either wash the car or remove & retie the bags all the time. I tried putting a mirror on the end of the deck, where the bird can surely see it but it hasn't worked yet. We are going crazy! P.S. I tried the mirror in our tree where the bird feeders are but removed it as a woodpecker darn near drove itself crazy by flitting at it for a solid afternoon. Worried about it harming itself I removed it. At wits end in Nova Scotia.Bird vs mirror

I've been enjoying the birds eating from my hand and off my hat as I walk around the yard for years. Chickadees are the easiest, but if I lean on a tree, the nuthatches will come hop-hop-hopping down the tree to my hat, or run down my arm, or go looking in my pocket for the cache of sunflower seeds they know are there, but they'll never fly directly to you and land ON you, like the chickadees - always above on a tree & then they hop down onto me. The chickadees are so bold they land on me in droves, but are actually usually quite polite. They'll perch on shoulders & arms, waiting to grab a seed, each in their turn, from my hand or hat. If I put my hand flat against my chin with knuckles up, like a landing pad, and put a single sunflower seed between my lips, the chickadees will land & take the seed from between my lips, like they're giving me a kiss. I had an idea that I'll work on. I'll fill a beer can with seed and tip it so the chickadees will reach in to grab a seed. It'll look like they're having a beer with their buddy in the back yard, and I'm sure I can come up with a caption when I get around to working on the shot. Al

Janis G, your bird garden sounds lovely. What kinds of plants do you grow in the garden and why do the birds like them? I already have several gardens and a couple bird baths in the front yard, with many flowers for butterflies and hummingbirds and other pollinators. Some make seeds the birds like to forage too (like Purple Coneflower and some of the annuals). I will be adding some native berry-producing shrubs to the yard. Also there are three feeders and a small bird bath in back and I would like to add more perennials and annuals the birds can use around the yard, especially near the feeding station (which is part-shade).

Our doves did try to eat some of the rice I threw out for them as I had read that someone had said they liked rice. Yesterday I noticed that our baby doves were sitting alone but we were also aware that the Mom and Dad were close by watching over them. Late in the day a Blue Jay was after the two little ones sitting in thier nest. Both parents decended on the Blue Jay until he flew away. Neither of the parents went back to the nest; we were concerned that they wouldn't make it to the next day. To our joy we found the Mom sitting on the nest early in the morning. However later both parents were away from the baby doves. Late this afternoon I was thrilled to witness both the Mom and Dad at the nest; Mom was feeding the little ones. And later - no parents, no baby doves. They had left the nest. My previous witness of all four of them together must have been the LAST family gathering. My question is: Do the parents stay with thier young long enough to teach them full flying lessons or do they kick them out of the nest and expect them to survive on thier own?