Chipping sparrow and song sparrow are back

 Song sparrow(s) returned a few weeks ago; noticed chipping sparrow(s) yesterday.  And course the house sparrows.  Fun!

Song sparrow, FOY in the backyard!

Sitting in the tray feeder.

Welcome!

Song sparrows, house sparrows, and junco in yard at same time

Fun!

Sparrows galore; millet goes fast!

So fun.  Seeing lots of house sparrows, chipping sparrows (feeding a young'un), and song sparrows.  The occasional goldfinches (they're not as fond as the platform feeder, so not getting tons like I did last year, but too bad so sad).  The millet is going like gangbusters.

So many birds after the storms! Including chipping sparrow!

Several periods of intense rain today, in between which the birds were excited to visit.  At one point, there was a cardinal, a house sparrow, a song sparrow, and two goldfinches!  And at another time there was a chipping sparrow sharing time with a goldfinch.  A song sparrow was quite territorial later, driving away the gold finches.

Great to have today's rain, really needed it.

Birds a-plenty! Goldfinches, house sparrows, cardinals, song sparrows

Fun!  Quite a few visits throughout the day these days.

Removed the new fine-mesh feeder yesterday because the goldfinches had stopped using it and they seemed to actually prefer the big tray.

So, now it's back to the small millet-only tray on one side, and the big tray on the other side offering sunflower chips (fine but passed through mesh first to reduce dust on ground), peanut pieces, millet, and nutrisaff.  I have the green soft mesh seed-catcher tucked right up underneath the big tray to catch the dust and it seems to be working great.

Yesterday evening I put the bird bath back out, saw one taker so far.

Song sparrow, goldfinch

So far, visitors to the birdfeeder, who I've seen, are the song sparrow and goldfinch.

Song sparrow ate millet from light tray! Only occasionally singing in tree (roaming?)

I was glad to see that he was comfortable being on the screening part of the tray.

Still many goldfinches; occasional song sparrows; no chipping sparrows anymore

^^^

Golfinches galore; and song sparrows, house sparrow (female), and chickadee

6 goldfinches in the yard all at the same time!

And on another occasion, a bunch of goldfinches, and a song sparrow, and a chickadee all at the same time!

So fun.

I'm assuming there's also a female house sparrow, but seeing only one at a time, sometimes two maybe, and no males, so I'm not totally sure if these are house sparrows.

Baby goldfinches! Song sparrow! Other sparrow!

Definitely saw a song sparrow and some other kind of sparrow (white throated maybe? didn't get a good look) eating the millet!

And 3 baby goldfinches came by with their parent(s)!  Brown rather than yellow, and being fed.

Oh and there was a flock of some kind of small bird (didn't see white in flight, so don't think they were juncos) just down the sidewalk this morning!

Fun!  But bummer I'm having to spend 12 hours a day upstairs working!

Zero sparrows/chickadees; only occasional goldfinches

So bizarre, went from tons of sparrows eating 2 Tbsp of millet a day, to zero.  Not hearing them singing, not seeing them in the yard, nothing at all.  Neither the chickadees.  Did they start to migrate?  Something else?  Hmmm.

I do still occasionally see goldfinches, both at the feeder and at the one remaining sunflower plant.

Also, this year I never saw the white throated or white crowned sparrows of last year.

Goldfinches are back today, but still no sparrows

No idea why the goldfinches came back today, as it's still very hot and humid.

Tray suspended under sunflower seed feeder working on goldfinches' sloppy eating

The goldfinches are so darn messy.  Even though the sunflower seeds are shelled, they seem to be interested in only one bite from each and they toss their rejected portions onto the ground.  So, I now have a clear plastic pot tray thing (nice and big, a few dollars at Ritchie's) hanging under the sunflower seed feeder.  So far so good, it really seems to be catching pretty much everything, and the sparrows come along and happily eat the stuff that falls onto the tray.

Sightings of the rat(s) are much fewer now that the sunflower heads from the mammoths are gone.  The presence of the ground cherries is I'm hoping the only thing keeping them here, plus the shelter they've taken under the kitchen step and in the compost bin.

So many birds! My birdfeeder dream come true

Oh wow this is so much fun!  So many birds coming to the feeder these days.  They obviously aren't bothered by its new spot.

Seeing these -- in various combinations too which is even more fun:

- song sparrows (eating more sunflowers now, bulking up for winter?)

- chipping sparrows with young (eating mostly millet)

- goldfinches (sunflowers of course)

- chickadees (noticed them starting today -- hadn't seen them since several months, maybe they didn't like it against the wall) (sunflower seeds)

- house sparrows (occasionally, and only one at a time)

Many goldfinches visiting; also song sparrows and chipping sparrows, with the occasional house sparrow

The goldfinches are starting to really get into the ripening sunflower heads, which is great especially since I'm not harvesting any myself.

Song sparrows still visit to eat/drink/bathe, but no longer forage along ground -- tomatoes / ground cherries too dense?

They still come by to eat millet, grab a drink and/or a bath, then eat a few sunflowers, but then they leave.  I think it's because the tomatoes have gone a wee bit unruly and the ground cherries too are fairly dense.

Itty bitty song sparrow fledgling

While poking around the garden today, what did I suddenly see looking up at me from atop a parsley stalk in the central bed, but a teeny tiny fledgling.  Well not teeny tiny, but definitely itty bitty, much younger than the other ones I saw a few weeks ago.  Was just sitting there.  So I went inside and herded the dogs inside (they hadn't seen) and watched.  About half an hour later an adult song sparrow came along and tended to the baby.  I didn't see feeding, but eventually the adult showed the baby how to get through the fence at the bottom (since the baby wasn't flying).  The baby looks weird in that s/he doesn't seem to have a tail / long tail feathers, though Google images seem to suggest that may be normal.  I hope s/he will be ok.  But it does go to show what they say about not rushing out and interfering when we see a baby animal -- chances are the parents are around and will come back.

3 goldfinches at once! no interference by song sparrow on the ground

Fun!  I love having multiple birds in the yard at the same time.  I can pretend for a moment like I'm one of those amazing You Tubers who have 24/7 cams of their bird feeders that 24/7 have crazy amount of birds at them.

Anyway, first the male flew in, and called.  A few minutes later the female arrived.  Then a few minutes later, a third goldfinch!  Either there were two females, or maybe one of the females was a juvenile.  One of them ate a bit from the mixed seed feeder, using a perch.

One flew away after a couple of minutes, the other two stayed around for a bit longer.

A song sparrow had been on the ground the whole time, never interfered.  Maybe it's only the males who are bullies, or females.

Cardinals lacking, but still seeing the goldfinches and of course song sparrows

Haven't seen the cardinals in a week or two (nor any more of the house finches nor house sparrow), but still seeing the goldfinch couple a few times a day (always on the mesh perchless sunflower feeder), and of course ample visits from the song sparrows.