Something ate all of my aronia berries last year for the first time ever. Thanks for the reminder. I'll need to pick them. My boys got into trouble. I'll have them pick them. Even better. I would imagine that they would store pretty well. I usually make juice with them: Part Orange juice and part aronia. It's fantastic. John S PDX OR

Lou, you crack me up! I had an old neighbor once in the country who shot a red-tailed hawk who came after his chickens. Wildlife had just released them a year earlier in a repopulation project. I told the wildlife guy at the time he was releasing them in the wrong area, that they would all be dead soon. He said that a lot of people would be in jail if they were. Nobody ever went to jail. The hawks caught on and moved elsewhere. I heard they were seen in Aiken, about 30 miles down the road, where they raise horses, not chickens, and love hawks because they eat the barn mice. Birds are smarter than we think they are. It's sad that we can't protect our crops from migratory marauders, but rich people can breed doves and foxes by the hundreds and shoot them on a yearly basis for "sport". FWIW, I've done some borderline illegal stuff to protect my garden when I lived in the country, and I purposely put net on my chicken coops to kill the snakes. I like snakes...in their place...but chickens are not as cheap to raise as some people think.

The replacement bird feeder actually isn't new. I bought it and used it last year, but had it in a different location. I didn't get it out this year until last week when the old feeder on my kitchen window was leaking due to a crack in the bottom. But I've always had a feeder on my kitchen window...are those little birds that smart to notice that it is a different feeder than the one I had up earlier last week? The old one was solid red, about 10" tall, with 4 yellow "flowers" to feed from. The current one is a clear globe (kind of shaped like a hot-air balloon). Only the bottom is red, but it still has the 4 yellow flowers to feed from.

I believe it's the red Aronia I have (which I also think the Latin name has been changed). I bought it because I read that they eat the red one and not the black. Mine has yet to bloom, just bought this spring at a native sale with not much to it, so I can't comment on the fragrance. But I went to another native sale that had the black ones and they smelled heavenly. And of course I went on a day that was for pick-up only. Since it was about a 2 hour drive, no way was I going back the next to buy myself one! I guess I should of worded my initial post differently and added in what berries do you find that your birds don't eat, but you have knowledge that they eat them somewhere else or something to that effect...because as Rita pointed out, there are berries that maybe the birds in my back yard won't eat, but they eat them in somebody else's.