Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, I can say the same thing. I'm glad I've finally got house finches here instead of my usual house sparrows. I haven't fed the birds at all in this house. Too many sparrows.

Terry

I am lucky that we have lovely old Mature Oaks in the neighborhood. Then there are lots of other trees around plus understory trees in the neighbors yard like dogwoods. So my shrub border is very popular now thats its starting to mature. Water also helps bring in all sorts of critters. I have one of those plastic preformed ponds in my shrub border.

This summer I intend to get the last of the green Japanese Barberry out that used to be all over my yard. Then I will continue the border, (which runs all along one side and wraps around the back) to wrap around the front.

I'm very psyched about the numerous sightings too. I've got a pair of Cardinals, Blue Jays, lots of Red Winged Blackbirds including several juveniles, Chickadees, some others I have yet to identify, and I haven't even started planting my habitat yet! The real capper for me is the pair of Great Egrets nesting in the tidal marsh at the rear of my property. I love watching them flying around and fishing during low tide. It's a very good year in CT for birds.

I think with the exception of me, every house on this block has a mature maple tree. Which means I spend a lot of time removing them from my beds. There just wasn't much here and not much in neighbors yards either. Maple trees, daylilies and hostas. Oh and the lovely lily of the valley is wanting to take over here. I'm in an old part of town, but people just don't garden like I do, or you do. It's a shame...

Terry

speaking of bird bounty, this year has brought in a rather impressive number of grosbeaks here. Some years we have only a few, but this year they are everywhere--rosebreasteds, blues. The evenings are surely here too.
Such lovely birds, and lovely oriole-ish song too.

We just had our first grosbeak in three Springs, too! A fine, fat male sat right on the Droll Yankee feeder next to the French doors for a good ten minutes...

We've also seen lots of goldfinches, house finches, the usual downy, hairy, red-bellied woodpeckers and flickers, but we're noticing rather unusual sparrows (chipping, song, black-throated...)and some great blue herons are using us as a flyway, too. Oh, and a pair of wood ducks visited the silver maples a while back--it was funny watching them wobble on the branches, trying to perch! Dh thinks he saw bluebirds in the fields over the weekend, too.

The STRANGEST thing we've seen since moving here was last year, when a flock of what turned out to be AFRICAN CATTLE EGRETS (!!!!) grazed the fields for a few days.

Becky

There have always been lots of birds around here but as I said before, not like this year. The amount of birds here is just amazing. I have been working on my yard for years now to make it attract backyard songbirds and wildlife and the strubs are starting to get larger/fill in and look like something. So I guess all the hard work pays off. Of course, its just really lovely in my yard, especialy in the spring when things bloom so that is a payoff in itself for my hard work.

Spring migration is always so exciting. Sometimes, there are so many birds around, I don't know which one to focus my binocs on!
We have alot of the usuals, but this week, on the way home from a friends house about 10 miles from here, I saw meadowlarks, bluebirds, indigo buntings and a scarlet tanager. Then, as I was driving down my lane, I came upon a male and female bobwhite.
Just around my house and woods, I'm seeing yellow warblers, common yellowthroats, kingbirds, olive-cheeked thrush, wood thrush, baltimore orioles, red breasted grossbeaks, house wrens, carolina wrens, chickadees, nuthatches, redstarts, yellow-rumped warblers, hummingbirds, and others I can't remember. It's just an unbelieveable wonder! I hope you all have a great birding year!

The birds are here all day long because, while the serviceberries are not ripe yet, my Goumi shrubs have put out an extremely heavy crop of berries that have been ripening for at least a week now. Birds love these things. I have Mockingbirds, Catbirds, Orioles and what not visiting all day long.

Next the Serviceberries will ripen and then the Blueberries. Birds should have a grand old time.

We do too this year..?I wonder why,I have herons,owls,a mallard in yard under pine tree on eggs,All my shrubs at the house have birds nesting,purple martins in barn & boxes,wrens,sparrows,finches,robins,hummers,I even saw 2 crows stealing baby birds in yard,cat bird,cardinals..its ammazing,I ve never seen this many birds in yard before.

I bet there are so many birds at your house so they can poop on your head. Your grass is most likely full of weeds.