Yeah, I've often thought that many (but not all) of the so-called "serious" birdwatchers I have known are deluded when they style themselves as "scientists". The vast majority wouldn't recognize true experimental design if it jumped up and bit them. Many (again not all) of these folks have encyclopedic knowledge when it comes to bird identification, which is no small thing - but that doesn't make one a scientist. Nor does it give one carte blanche to become a bird-botherer. I prefer to do my watching in my own yard, and my listening, and all other birdly activities. Mostly from behind my patio door. I like to plant bird-friendly (and butterfly-and-bee friendly) plants where possible - which is no excuse for my backyard neighbor who planted trumpet vine along the fence, very far up a steep slope from HIS lawn, but leaving me to have to constantly root up the invasive vines all through MY back yard. Has he never heard of cardinal climber??? *sigh* As for feeding the birds - according to actual ornithologists, given that you are feeding appropriately (eg sunflower seeds, not bread crumbs, kind of thing) it does no harm and may do a bit of good in times of stress. Clean water is equally and sometimes more important. I'll not argue about the ecological soundness or lack thereof of the bird seed industry as a whole - but frankly, unless you're cobbling your own shoes from leather-providing animals that you raised on your native pasture; and are weaving your own cloth from the fiber you spun from your own flock of sheep or from the flax you grew and retted yourself, then wove that on the loom you built from wood you cut down on your own wood lot; AND you are making your own pottery cookware from clay you dug yourself - I don't think there's really all that much to say on this issue. The environmental impact of manufacturing the computers we are all using to access this forum on the Internet, and the network of manufacturing, mining, and transportation that supports all that (not to mention terrible working conditions for the workers who assemble the things) almost doesn't bear thinking about - but in any case, the use of birdseed pales in comparison. OK, I'm being a bit facetious - but in the general scheme of things there are far worse things we do on a daily basis than buy a 50 lb bag of BOSS to feed the birds. Most of them involve our ubiquitous use of cars. The number one thing you can do to save the environment (and improve your health) is to leave the car home at every opportunity and walk or ride a bike to get around as much as is possible. This will, btw, also go a long way towards improving the general health of the birds as well. Cleaner air is good for us all!

Wow! What a great find! Such a sweet little bird. Good job on that ID...Warblers can be tricky. We have many birds that stop by our feeders during migration, both spring & fall. It's a fun time of year for birders. The link you posted was from Cornell. Do you participate in their Project Feeder Watch? I signed up three years ago and have learned a great deal. It has really helped me to focus on what birds are in my yard. I enjoy finding new birds and can work for hours and days on making sure of my final ID. It's fun to look at the data from around my own area as well as state and nation wide. I've enjoyed it. sooey

Thank you all for the good ideas. And thank you for letting me know that your evenings aren't always filled with earth shattering memorable excitement! I do enjoy my quiet evenings, but they had gotten a little too common - even for an introvert like me. I am going to have to make an effort to look for things to do and join. My town is small and not known for having a lot to do - but I'm sure once I start looking I'll find more. I'm going to have to leave my hermit comfort zone and try some things. I love to dance, but I haven't heard of anything like that. That would be good for me - active and fun. Several people mentioned gardening, which is a good idea too. We have so many deer though - they eat everything. I tried to put in a garden several years ago and ended up having to screen it in. That's a lot of expense to have a raised screened in garden. About this time last year I made plans to cut way back and change my work responsibilities - mostly because my job had morphed into something that I no longer enjoyed everyday. But since then, we have had several sicknesses, employees with family emergencies and a key employee leave. That has thrown me back into the drudgery part of my job I was trying to get out of. I am of course replaceable, but somewhat in charge and working for family, so that's harder than it might be otherwise. Anyway, sometimes I want my evenings to be relaxing, but sometimes I need them to fun. I think I need to change my mindset to say yes to more things and see where that leads me. And looking at my calendar last night, starting next week I am very busy for the next several weeks and then summer will be here. There's always more to do then. Also - last night I put my phone away. I do think I have a slight screen addiction. It is so easy to get caught up on reading something online, following the rabbit trail and several hours later you're still there. Which can be ok, but at the end of the evening, I was not grateful for my relaxing evening, I was mad at myself for wasting time. So - less screens for me hopefully!

Jen, I bet is has been a crazy week with extra furbabies underfoot. I hope it was a fun one. Nancy, Thanks for the photo of the rain. I've just about forgotten what rain looks like. We're hoping to get some on Sunday or Monday although the amount the 7-day QPF is forecasting for us keeps dropping, choking out hope of getting good rain with each update. Last night's/this morning's rain went both north and south of us (naturally) but we got a few drops.....8' rain....one raindrop every 8 feet. This so-called rain fell for a couple of hours (in theory, because we did have wind, thunder and lightning for the entire time) but the ground still looked dry when it was done, and the rain gauge had less than 1/100th of an inch in it...so we called it a "trace" of rain. It is probable rain fell from the clouds higher above but evaporated as it came through the drier air layer down near the ground because it looked like it was raining, but we literally were not feeling it or seeing it at the ground level. Virga. That's the story of our lives lately. That is so terrible about the ping pong ball sized hail. Hail that size can do a lot of damage. The worst hail I've been in personally myself was baseball to softball sized, and experiencing that once in a lifetime was one time too many. Larry, I'm sorry for all your troubles with the incompetent medical folks who have wasted three months of your time. I know that sort of thing is very frustrating. Jennifer, I am doing my best to hang in there, thinking that if only rain...real rain, not evaporating rain, not rain that falls 3 miles north or 1/2 mile south, but actual real rain that falls on our land and wets everything down....if only.....if only it will fall in the next few days, than maybe I can keep watering and keep the blooms going for the birds, bees, butterflies, etc. We're still hitting 100 every day (105 Thursday at our house, 103 yesterday, 101 today) and not getting the rain, so the garden just roasts and roasts in this heat and dryness. We were out at a fire again yesterday...a really bad one....a 6,000 s.f. barn with animals temporarily trapped by the flames. That big metal barn was like an oven and the firefighters suffered tremendously while fighting that fire. They are tough and never quit, but a person can only take so much heat. For the second day in a row, they already had a firefighter in the ambulance by the time we arrived on the scene with water, Gatorade and more....and we were not that slow to arrive either. The heat is just that bad. I had cooked fire food (still had some in the oven when the pagers went off) all morning long, and spent the whole afternoon at the fire, so never stepped foot in my garden yesterday. I finally went in there around 7:30 or 8:00 pm tonight just to water tomatoes in containers. That is all I could manage to do today. I couldn't go to today's fire (because, of course, there was one....but Tim went) because we have the 3 year old granddaughter this weekend. Instead of playing in the dirt, I've been playing with Play Dough and Softee Dough. I know you all are jealous. Megan, If every weather guy in the state stood on their head and swore that August would be more mild....I still wouldn't believe it. Not for us. Being this far south, we rarely get the cool-downs that hit points further north, so I don't expect much relief. We usually go anywhere from 2 to 5 degrees higher than forecast anyway, so even if they forecast cooler weather, we do not necessarily see it happen. Tomorrow is supposed to be our last 100+ degree day for a week or so, and I hope they are right. Even the low 90s would feel good compared to what we've been having. They just don't seem to do a very good job forecast our high temperatures down here. We also get a lot of compressional heating as fronts pass or are approaching or whatever, and inevitably the compressional heating pushes us to higher temperatures than what was forecast. I didn't even known what compressional heating was when we moved here, but I sure do know what it is now. Y'all know how much trouble I have with venomous snakes slithering out of the woods and into the garden to eat frogs and toads and whatever.....well, yesterday, at the fire, towards the end when the firefighters were doing overhaul, they brought out a charred crispy snake, burned and blackened so badly that you couldn't tell what sort of snake it had been, but it had the pointed head......so, I felt right at home with...the snake of the day. See there, I don't even have to step foot into the garden to see snakes. We ate lunch early today at Caddo Street BBQ in Ardmore, which is a really new place. I think it opened for business on July 4th. It was amazing---the food all tasted home-made, and I do mean home-made, not like the restaurant version of home-made but like true grandma-cooked-it-in-the-kitchen home-made. They're only open from 10:30 a.m. until approximately 2:30 p.m. (closing earlier if the meat sells out early, but staying open later if they still have meat available) and we were there early to guarantee we would get fed before the place turned into a standing-room-only situation. So, if you're in line ordering your food at 10:30 a.m., I guess it is brunch more than breakfast or lunch. I would gladly eat our first meal of the day there each Saturday for the rest of our lives. It all was so good, and Saturday seems to be the one day that Tim, Chris, Jana and I all can get together. We met the owner who seems like a fine person (and he sure knows how to smoke meat) and Chris won a free t-shirt for being the first customer in line this morning (which surprised and thrilled him---he will wear that shirt with pride). So, my weekend hasn't been about gardening at all, really, and I don't care. I need a break. Whether I want a break or not is a moot point---the daily fires (which I knew were coming at some point due to the drought) will ensure I pretty much stay out of the garden for a while, I guess. I do hope I can get back into some sort of gardening schedule on Monday and at least manage to harvest daily. I think that all that is really waiting to be harvested now is a few watermelons and some okra. Thankfully, I'm growing Stewart's Zeebest---and you can let it can really long and it doesn't get woody right away like some other okra varieties do. I'll try to start the weekly thread on time in the morning because the three year old usually sleeps in late and that should give me some computer time. I hope you all get whatever wonderful weather is in your forecast....rain, cooler temperatures....all of the above. Dawn