For the Birds

White-breasted Nuthatch and a Tufted Titmouse.

Ever since the hummingbirds flew south and stopped visiting my hummingbird feeder, I have been longing for a seed bird feeder to attract the vast array of birds that overwinter here. Amazon came to my aid and after reading reviews and debating the options for a few days (I wanted to make the best decision after all) I ordered the "perfect" feeder and anxiously awaited its arrival. Sure enough a couple days before conference weekend it came in the mail. Keith kindly picked up some bird seed at the store and we were in business. I was in bird heaven. We spent the weekend watching the birds and listening to conference. It was great.

Clockwise: A pesky squirrel, male Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch curled up in my rosemary pot on a rainy afternoon (not a great picture but it was super cute), and a female Northern Cardinal.

We get quite the wide variety at our feeder. I am including a list for my sake and for the one or two readers who might be interested (*cough* Grandpa Joe *cough*). Charlie gets excited about the birds as well and points at and does his bird sound imitation whenever he sees them. He also points out pictures of birds and packs around his toy bird more these days. Basically, we love having the feeder and I don't know why we waited so long to get one. There are only two problems with it:
1) the birds eat A LOT of seed. They are pretty good with eating it all (the cardinals keep the ground pretty clean) but they still go through it. This just means that the feeder isn't full every day, so no big deal.
2) although the squirrels can't get to it, it does bring them on to our little patio more. This by itself is not an issue but one squirrel likes to dig up my sage plant (Grrrrr...).

The feeder bird list (the regulars):
Northern Cardinals
American Goldfinch
Eastern Towhee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren