We have a double sided shepherd’s hook with two finch feeders hanging by the kitchen window, and a sunflower feeder out in the yard. So we get lots of goldfinches, plus house finches, cardinals, chickadees, and juncos in the winter. Nothing exciting except for the rare indigo bunting that shows up once or twice a summer. Otherwise we just like to see how big of a crowd of goldfinches we can get.
We have the usual assortment of birds at the feeder. But there’s another that gets our attention these days. He’s the biggest, meanest-looking robin we’ve ever seen. This guy is HUGE, and has a ruffled appearance and a very shrill squawk. I think of him as a war survivor with PTSD. He never joins the other birds at the feeder, but sits on a bare branch on a tree near the back door. Anyone who exits the door is immediately assaulted by his deafening war-cry.
I bought one of these Squirrel Buster feeders a few months ago, after my old feeder broke. I was skeptical, but it seems to be working. With the old feeder it would often be cleaned out just a day after filling it-- a tell tale sign a squirrel got to it. With this one the seed lasts much longer, with a smaller feeder (I got the cheaper “mini” one). Besides being spring loaded to close off access to the seeds if a squirrel hangs from it, the feeder hangs from a long rod, so they can’t reach it by hanging upside down. They recommend hanging it at least three feet from any poles so they can’t reach it from the side, and it sounds like your cable will take care of that.
We’re not allowed to put up feeders, but out the windows and on our walks we see mostly:
Robins
Cardinals
White-throated sparrows (Thanks, MikeS!)
Blue jays
Gray catbirds
Mockingbirds
Red-bellied woodpeckers
Crows - I haven’t bothered to listen to recordings of American vs Fish.
New for us, assuming we ID’d right:
Carolina wren
Yellow-rumped warbler
Wood thrush
I’ve had a few flashes of other woodpeckers but I haven’t gotten a good look.
When I’m in NM it’s all house sparrows, mourning doves, and black-chinned hummers.
I only have finch feeders so the only peeps at my feeders are finches. House finches, gold finches, chickadees, and various sparrows.
Lots of stuff at the neighbor’s feeders, and in my grape vine. Seems like we have more cardinals than usual this year!
I had TWO BLUEBIRDS hanging out on my fence and shed for about 3 weeks. I bought a bluebird house but I think I was a week too late. Haven’t seen the bluebirds since. Something else has claimed the bird house. Nobody has made a nest but someone is sitting on the house screeching every day, and pooping inside.
My friend who lives northeast of me has seen both the grossbeaks and orioles you’ve spotted. I’ve not seen either 
Also, I started wearing different mid-range-focus glasses when I work at the computer so when I go out to smoke during the day I can’t see a damn thing. I only noticed the bluebirds because they were so bright!
We are overrun with Gambels quail, plus the usual mourning and white wing doves, curve-billed thrashers, pyrrhuloxias, roadrunners, and what I think is the Cassin’s kingbird (or some other little grey bird with a yellow/orange front). Non-birds include a rock squirrel who is pissing me off (I assume he is the little fucker eating my jalapeno plants, as fencing keeps the rabbits out), cottontail rabbits, motherfucking rats that live in the prickly pear, and the occasional javalina and bobcat. Coyotes and foxes are in the area, I rarely see a fox, but regularly hear the coyotes. What bothers me is that with all the small mammals there should be more snakes out there, but I haven’t seen many. I tell myself that we just have badass roadrunners keeping them in check, but I don’t think that’s true.
Chickadees
Crows
Goldfinches
Robins - in the yard not at the feeders
Various sparrows
Red squirrels
Gray squirrels
Black (gray) squirrels
Deer
Rabbits
Last fall a bear took our feeder for the millionth time. We usually find it down the trail a little ways, but the last time he took it we couldn’t find it anywhere. A couple of weeks ago, I was walking down the trail and spotted it quite a ways off the trail. It was still in one piece which amazed me.
We usually see a single blue jay once in a while but in the last few days we’ve had 15 or more all together. They’re everywhere!
On my walks I’m seeing a lot of redwing blackbirds - just the males. I don’t know if their wives have made the trip up north yet or if they’re hiding somewhere on nests. I also see a lot of mallard ducks and Canada geese.
My advice for feeding goldfinches, DO NOT feed them thistle seeds. They love them and we had a lot of fun watching huge numbers of the goldfinches clustered on the feeders. BUT we had thistle plants galore the next year. They were everywhere and they’re hard to get rid of.
You can get “nyjer” seed for feeders that is similar to thistle seed but has been irradiated and doesn’t germinate. It’s from Africa hence the name.
no birds so far. One feeder is for hummingbirds , the other has safflower . This is NC if that matters.
A pair of dumbass robins built a nest in a bird feeder that’s about 5 feet off the ground and adjacent to my coldframe. It does have a roof but it was not a great idea to locate the nest in a trafficked area that’s somewhat accessible to predators.
So far the three hatchlings appear to be doing OK and the parents* are tolerating my occasional presence.
*Dad, a territorial sort, has been pecking at his reflection in our windows for the past month and a half.
Heh. we have problems with wrens building nests where they shouldn’t. Every year we have at least one wren start a nest inside our garage when we have the garage doors open for cleaning. Then we end up propping the man-door open so that the wren can get in and out.
I posted that yesterday, so of course today a woodpecker showed up at the feeder to prove me wrong.
We get about the same mix at our feeder (Southeast region) along with tufted titmice.
Recently we had a new visitor, which— using binoculars and a 74-year-old bird identification field guide that belonged to my grandfather— I identified as an eastern towhee.
If you want bluebirds, fill a feeder with mealworms. They love those - I get a TON of bluebirds. I also have nest boxes and water for them - they really like fresh water.
We had bird feeders for some years until we finally realized that the scientific name for these is “rat feeders”.
We started feeding orioles grape jelly.
Hey, it’s been quiet here, this was the high point of the week so far.
Here in the UK, we have a large, noisy family of sparrows, blackbirds, wood pigeons, jackdaws, occasional magpies, collared doves, and a 20-strong flock of urban pigeons who get fed 3 times daily and who will come let me know by tapping on a window if I’m late. We’ve only been here a couple of years.
We also have a local buzzard watching the house and occasionally trying to hunt here, coming down to rest on the fence a metre away from my kitchen window. It’s taken a few swoops at our budgies and cockatiel on their window perches, and once caught our much-loved female pigeon alpha, Wingtips, against one of our windows with a massive Bang! Scared the bejebus out of us. We thought it was going to be a gruesome nature lesson for our kid on how predators had to eat, too, when it started plucking the pigeon’s neck a couple of feet from the window. It was big and beautiful, amazing eyes and big feet.
Luckily it decided it didn’t like being watched while eating and let Wingtips go, and she survived. We were all genuinely worried we wouldn’t see her again, as she’s the friendliest and will allow us within inches of her.
We also have a big, shiny brown rat living in our neighbours’ wood store who has tunnelled under our shared wall to pick up the scattered food on the floor under the bird feeder. I’m keeping an eye on the situation - we like rats, find them as fascinating as we do all wildlife, and don’t have a problem with a limited number in the garden, but wouldn’t want to get overrun with them, which I realise is a risk. Might have to say goodbye to the feeder, but we really don’t want to.
Which is why my condo board nixed them.
I’ll second the recommendation for the Brome Squirrel Buster. We have the Classic model. It has been very effective against squirrels, and the warranty provided free repair parts after it was broken from repeated nighttime raids by a raccoon.
[Moderating]
On reflection, this really isn’t about art. Moving to MPSIMS.