Love it,hope you get a cup and saucer up there with it,that would look so good :) Did you make the bench from a chair or a headboard? I really like it a lot! Everything looks great :)

You can always try hanging the feeders independent of the trees. A post set into the ground with hooks for the feeders or the shepherd's crooks they sell specifically for this purpose would prevent any damage hanging feeding appliances directly to a tree might incur. As to the pros and cons of feeding birds.......I agree with Dan on this one. Expanding development has restricted/removed many of the natural habitats and food sources and encouraging birds to the garden is overall a very good thing - they are the best natural insect control available! Plus, they are infinitely entertaining. Planting to encourage habitat and to supplement food sources is desirable, but nothing wrong with feeders either. They can bring the birds up close and personal :-)) If you want songbirds, try a "no-waste" mix. Even if it gets scattered on the ground, it gets eaten too fast to hang around to attract rodents. And sapsucker damage to trees is generally more cosmetic than particularly harmful. Since they have a 'preferred' tree menu, you can always avoid attracting them by not planting the trees they like. And as they tend to limit their diet to insects and tree sap, with supplementation from fruits and berries - the seed feeders are unlikely to create additional problems.

Pretty birds. I see downy woodpeckers fairly often but hardly ever see the bigger woodpeckers. Our little Chloe is still jumping up in the air trying to catch every bird or airplane that she sees. I was hoping she would outgrow that. I don't think she's ever caught anything but I get tired of hearing her bark at them. I moved my bird feeder out of the back yard away from the dogs. I liked it better where it WAS because I could see the feeder and birds through my bay window from the kitchen. Now it's more out of the way but the birds will have some peace. I still need to hang my finch feeder.

This really gets us down into the nitty-gritty of finely detailed plumage differences. I ruled out female Rose-breasted Grosbeak: the bill is too small, brown cheek patch not large and prominent enough, iris not big enough, brown on throat (rather than the white throat of the female RBGR), white upperwing bars are actual bars (whereas as the female RBGR shows white spotted bars). Female RBGR also show a more defined white supercilium. RBGR don't show pink legs. The bird in the photo looks the part of a female Purple Finch.