Thank you, Kate Hammill for your excellent and accurate comments on bird
feeders.

Bob Sundstrom and I have a great variety of birds in our West Seattle
backyard - and no starlings. We also:

have no lawn
use tube feeders (one with a tray for the band-tails)
use lots of native landscaping/bird friendly plantings
use black oil and niger/thistle seed only
have LOTS of water at all different levels
and - this one is key - a special cage surrounding our suet feeder

I have been lucky enough to be home and in the backyard for the past few
days - enjoying the wonders of baby birds coming to our feeding stations.
Yesterday I was delighted to watch as brand new
(juvenile/immature/fledgling, etc.) Black-headed Grosbeaks, Downy
Woodpeckers, Band-tailed Pigeons, American Robin and Black-capped Chickadees
all took turns at the feeders, or were being fed by their parents from the
feeders. Also trouping through yesterday were Bushtits, Spotted Towhees,
Rufuous and Anna's Hummingbirds and a busy Bewick's Wren feeding the baby
birds in a birdhouse tucked into the filbert shrub in the front yard. An
occasional house sparrow does show up (we don't feed much that they will
eat) and we do have lots of house finches.

I can't imagine not having feeders in the yard in the summer.

Sally Alhadeff
Seattle, WA
mailto:ixoreus at home.com