Joanna, there will always be a little 'spill over' of seeds when you feed the birds, but you can minimize it by putting out suet cakes in the winter (my birds love the Peanut Delight suet) and solid seed cakes the rest of the year.

I also suspend a little net circle under my feeders to collect the spilled seed that the birds fling around. So all that can help keep the seeds up off the ground so the squirrels and chipmunks won't congregate for a free meal.

dyzzypyxxy said:Joanna, there will always be a little 'spill over' of seeds when you feed the birds, but you can minimize it by putting out suet cakes in the winter (my birds love the Peanut Delight suet) and solid seed cakes the rest of the year.

I also suspend a little net circle under my feeders to collect the spilled seed that the birds fling around. So all that can help keep the seeds up off the ground so the squirrels and chipmunks won't congregate for a free meal.

@dyzzypyxxy

How do you secure the net? I'd be afraid that a bird might get caught in it.

It's just a hoop suspended below the feeder on strings, and the hoop is 'netted' with some old window screening. Nobody's gotten tangled in it in over 3 years.

I've got a picture of it somewhere . . .


The squirrels do get into the net, since it's near a tree but mostly the birds clean it out pretty well. I don't have any chipmunks here. I always will have squirrels because my house is surrounded by oak trees.

dyzzypyxxy said:It's just a hoop suspended below the feeder on strings, and the hoop is 'netted' with some old window screening. Nobody's gotten tangled in it in over 3 years.

Oh! Screen! Much better than netting. Thank you! I will definitely give this a try! And my foundation thanks you too!

Thanks for all of the nice comments and thanks for the acorn Mika. I'm going to call the rehabber and find out how the Hawk made out and let y'all know.

The Flickers and Waxwings are gorgeous!

It's usually really slow around here for birds this time of year aside from the regular residents. A couple of weeks ago I heard sandhill cranes go over, and saw some migrating white-crowned and white-throated sparrows in mid October. Other than that though... not too much.

Then today I saw one I hadn't seen here in over three years. A cute little Red Fox Sparrow. I didn't realize until today that there were subspecies for these guys and that this is a "red" one. A nice surprise for sure. He was just hopping along with the horde of house sparrows doing that cute little jumping back and forth they do.

How cute is that little bird! I'd never heard of Red Fox Sparrows; love all sparrows, they're cheeky and brave.

Joanna We are east of you near cape Ann & our tube feeder is hung from a branch of a beech tree. It doesn't get dumped but sometimes the squirrels do get on it. they usually work on the spilled seeds on the ground. Ground feeders like Mourning Doves all work on the spills. Next year I am thinking about getting a tube with the screen bilt on so only the small birds can perch on it. The cardinals have been on the tube but are quite able to work on the ground. Every spring we have to clean the covers of the black oil seeds across the driveway that the chickadees dump. They grab the seed & fly off, different from the goldfinches which sit on the perch & eat & eat.
I don't use my digital camera very well & the window screens sort of block photos from inside.

Wonderful about rescuing the hawk.

Morgan, what a cutie that Red Fox Sparrow is! I've never heard of that one but I love sparrows and that little one has some pretty markings. I don't see them very often down here but we used to get the tiny Chipping Sparrows in the winter months and sometimes the little House Sparrows too when we lived in Daytona Beach. I'm not sure if any sparrows make it this far south in the state. These are old photos from a few years ago.

Chipping Sparrow ................................. House Sparrow

More photos for your viewing pleasure, please enlarge or you will miss the true beauty of the birds.

Starling & Robin taken in September


Bohemian Waxwings... In the second photo you can see the interesting pattern at the base of it's bill.

plantladylin said:
Chipping Sparrow ................................. House Sparrow

Chipping Sparrows are some of my favorite birds. They are just so tiny and cute! Here they are a summer bird, and are replaced in the winter with the similar looking American Tree Sparrow.

I don't think the Fox Sparrows travel all the way down to Florida based on my book's map. The other subspecies of Fox Sparrows look quite different and are not nearly as red. From the maps it looks like those ones are more west coast birds.

I think your second bird there is not just a House Sparrow. It kind of looks like a young Henslow's Sparrow to me, but I'm not entirely sure. I've only seen one once at a forest preserve. Sparrows can be very tricky! I only recently started realizing I was probably misidentifying a lot of them when I was just using binoculars and my eyes for quick glances. Getting photographs let me study them more closely and compare markings. At home here, 99% of the sparrows I see every day are House Sparrows, so anything slightly different does tend to catch my eye like the Fox Sparrow today.

And there are sub species.

Margaret, Love them all but especially the shots of the Starling & the Robin!

Morgan, I've never heard of the Henlsow's Sparrow but after googling and looking at pictures, this one that I thought was a house sparrow sure does look like the Henslow's! I only saw this sparrow the one time, a little south of what shows on the range maps!

Photo taken, September 18, 2015

Congrats to everyone for being the third most popular thread this week!

We also had two posts make the "Noteworthy Acorn Tips"!

First, @mcash70 with this post: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

And also @RobinSeeds for her hawk rescue: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Let's keep it going! I'm loving the pictures and the info!

Ok, I want to individually acknowledge every single picture here. Of course the waxwings is pretty dang amazing. @Plantladylin, I love love your House Sparrow. Love those Vultures, and cranes. I glanced down thru your pics, and then found I had to go back to the top and click each photo, and All are so noteworthy, and need to be viewed a bit larger to really appreciate the beauty of each photo and the birds within.

I wish you guys could make a calendar, if not for your favorite bird charities, for your own enjoyment. If it ever happens, please tree mail me, I will certainly buy one.

Always so nice to come here.

Morgan, very interesting about the red sparrow. After looking at your picture, I believe I get some of these sparrows at my bird feeder. I also get song sparrows from time to time. We don't get many different kinds of sparrows in my area. I really didn't know that there were sub species.

I've been seeing sparrows hopping around here too, will have to take a closer look at them. Hopefully with the camera lens.

mcash70 said:More photos for your viewing pleasure, please enlarge or you will miss the true beauty of the birds.

Starling & Robin taken in September


Bohemian Waxwings... In the second photo you can see the interesting pattern at the base of it's bill.

These are extraordinary pictures. I've never seen a waxwing and they are very beautiful.