Dawn, believe it or not I do have peach colored ornaments. Nothing traditional for me. My peach tree is sterile so the only thing I have is web worms which have already started. I refuse to have the tree sprayed so I will take my little torch and have a web worm barbque. That is how my grandfather did it and he never lost his trees or burned anything he was not suppose to of course I was always on garden hose watch. I got where I would get my tomatoes just before ripe and put them in the kitchen and let them ripen indoors. The mockers were not eating them, just pecking like they were playing. The problem seems to be they figure out which are ornaments and which are tomatoes, according to some of the garden lore, so you have ornaments hanging and the tomatoes are stilled pecked up. The mockingbird goes back to the same area where they were born to raise their little ones, so you end up with mockers that are like family members. I have one that meets me each morning before I leave for work and flutters around while I do garden inspection. Then each evening he is back by the backdoor waiting on me. Guess I have a pet and dont know it. MH: I did not have any cardinals for years. I started putting song bird food out all through the year and now they make morning runs and evening runs to the feeder. Cardinals are very picky about where they eat. They are not big on the usual bird feeder but prefer the saucer type that is hanging from the trees or poles. I also put my feeders in the shade with quite a bit of shrubs and a large tree nearby, they feel better protected. I also have a shallow bird bath for all the birds. My father was a bird watcher and raised birds so I got a some data from osmosis from him. If you give them the right set up they will eventually show up, it may take a while, but it is worth it. I have had as many as 5 males at one time eating and fluttering around. Oh, I did notice, dont hang your hummer feeders close to your regular feeders. The hummers in my area seem to be very aggressive and run the other birds off, well, not the jays or the mockers, but they are really not your usual bird. Oh, yeah, bird feed they seem to like: small oil sunflower seeds or the song bird mix you get at the old wally world seems to be the diet of choice. Well, that was probably more than you wanted to know, but I got on a roll and Dawn and Susan can tell ya sometimes I do go on. Happy gardening and bird watching. Steffie

Randy, The ones that overwinter here (some years) never seem to come to the birdfeeders, so I don't think they eat birdseed. However, I often see them in the possumhaw hollies so I think they might survive partially on possumhaw berries (and other types of berries as well). Also, we do have some insects active here even in the winter months....small bees, flies, ground beetles, etc. and I know the phoebes eat them when they can catch them. Since you are significantly further north than we are, I don't know how many bugs are available to your phoebes in the winter months, though. We live in horse and cattle country, so there are usually plenty of flies year round, at least around the stock barns! One winter, we had overwintering phoebes and a pretty severe ice and snow storm, so I thawed out some frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries) and put them outside on the ground in an area of the yard where I often saw the phoebes.....underneath a clump of possumhaw hollies. The phoebes and other birds devoured those berries that day. Sometimes I see the phoebes sitting on the garden fence and spending quite a bit of time in the veggie garden, so I think they might be looking for insects that might be overwintering in garden debris or mulch. They also hang out around the compost pile a lot. I'm not sure what your phoebes are eating routinely in good weather, but think that in the bad weather, they tend to eat whatever they can find. The bug-eating birds that overwinter here seem to get pretty hungry during prolonged periods of cold, but the bugs reappear on warmer days and the birds really feast then. Dawn

Thats so sad. Snakes, Racoons, Owl, Cat, even other birds. It may have been something that prowls at night since you have not seen anything. I have nest boxes and I can protect those birds to some extent but the open nesters are on their own. It is nature and it's not always pretty.

That's cool that they came back at all. I'm surprised. Usually any fledglings are just about ready to take care of themselves, but I'm sure, they continue to hang out with family/relatives! That is a really neat thing about nature that most people don't usally notice. But, we who love the birds ... notice and learn! PS: I'm happy for your babies!!!! ... tweet!