In the past 24 hours, the feeders have been overrun by hungry birds. Anywhere from 10-20 Orioles at a time (Baltimore outnumbering Orchard roughly 3-1), RB Grosbeaks (3 pairs), Catbirds, Cardinals, Grackles, House Finches, Goldfinches, 2 late Siskins, Both Nuthatches, Chipping Sparrows, Woodpeckers D, H, and RB, Warblers Yellow, Yellow-Rumped, Nashville, Palm, and B&W.*
*These are only the ones I bothered to ID I have lots of orange slices and grape jelly set out; it got down to 34 here last night, so bugs must be scarce: Warblers and Orioles are also taking crumbled bits of suet from the platforms. Yellow Warblers in particular are coming directly to the deck to take meal worms from the railing. This morning, they were landing on the window screens looking for bugs. It appears that some Warblers don't recognize/understand suet feeders. I've only ever seen Yellow-Rumps on them. But if the suet is crumbled and scattered, on platforms, stumps, logs, railings, or smeared onto tree trunks, they find it right away. Since the Orioles and Grosbeaks have come to dominate the platforms, I've spread the feeding sites out around the yard. The Warblers seem to like it at least 10 yards from the bigger birds. I haven't seen so much savor for suet since the Spring '08 fallout, when I was living in Isanti Co. -- Jason M. Frank Ortonville Public Library Founder & Vice President Luddite Ornithologists League (LOL) Big Stone County, Minnesota ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
