forgot to mention the others: doves, mockingbirds, grackles-common and boat-tailed, sparrows, painted buntings, blue jays, woodpeckers, yellow throated warbler, phoebe or flycatcher - not sure. yellow rumped warbler, turkey buzzards, crows. ducks flying over - don't know what brand. white ibis, lord and lady cardinal. cormorant flying over..woodstork. Think that's it for today. I love this time of year, too...especially for the birds. Have not seen the robins in a few days now, and the goldfinches flitted on through...only stopped for a very, very short time this year..yesterday I saw two..today nothing. No orioles yet, either, nor cedar waxwings...hoping maybe for this week, tho....it was the first week of March last year.

Yes Ken, Perky Pet Oasis. I initially purchased at Lowes for $10, maybe 2 years ago, then they stopped selling them. I still check to this day, and nothing. I purchased additional ones on Amazon. I love them; so easy to clean, no spillage, hummers have no issue with them. I have 4. I only had the camera outside because I was attempting to get a shot of the 2 mockingbirds at my suet feeder, but I failed. Hummer came by; she didn't flinch when I walked across the deck to get it. That's always a good!

Well any bush or small tree that is spiny (if this is not an issue with young children around) is sure to attract desirable nesting birds such as the Song sparrow. Check if the one or two Berberis species (commonly nammed barberries) that are native to the USA are now clear with your local laws. (They used to be banned because they transmitted wheat rust disease to crops.) An Hawthorne also makes an excellent nesting bush for small birds, but they are slow-growers. Song sparrows and Red cardinals also love any dense thicket of Red cedar (which the waxwings and robins will also devour the fruits from) or arborvitae (White cedar) to nest inside and get cover for sleeping during those nasty winter weather spells... We have two large Sambucus canadensis, fruiting heavily in the sun, two other ones that strive under dense shade(Sort of as an experiment... last year they had sprung from the ground just like a perennial, seemingly dying to the ground in the fall... But this spring the buds are forming higher on the old fall branches, so maybe these two will recover and become full-fledged shady spot shrubs... we'll see). Then we have a specimen of Sambucus pubens, and this other native species indeed grows fast (gotta be careful about root competition at first though) in the shade, flowers in its first couple of years, then fruits almost as soon as it flowers! Fruits are shining bright red in the shade and are a very pretty sight in early summer, but these do disappear fast with the birds!! I am surprised that you seem to have problems finding those plant species at the nurseries. Here in the Montreal area and suburbs, at some points in the season they come almost a dime a dozen! I suggest you shop around a little more. And don't forget that if you buy small potted plants from Internet dealers (search here in the archives to find those reliable dealers), in the case of Sambucus, they grow so fast and easy that this should not be an issue for you.

Thanks for the response, Loris, and so glad you enjoyed my article! I agree, the young cardinals are noisy, but then all the baby birds are when they want food! I love it, though, because we have our windows open, and as soon as I hear them squawking, I can rush over and watch. Today there was a squirrel doing contortions trying to leap from our hammock to our mixed seed feeder, and it was so funny watching him. We have that feeder strung on a string in the very middle of the back yard, so they can't jump onto it from any trees or straight up. And the squirrels don't seem to care about any of the other seeds, other than the one for sunflowers, but we finally learned at got one of those spring ones that close up if something too heavy lands on the perch. The few squirrels that originally tried it must have passed the word on to the rest, hardly any squirrels try to get seeds there any more. Happy Spring--and right around the corner, Happy Summer! Darlene