Feeder visitors

For someone used to having a variety of birdfeeders, having to cut back has been frustrating, especially since the arboretum across the street attracts so many birds. Our in-town neighborhood is full of outdoor cats, and as fond as I am of our three felines, invasive, non-native predators on the loose are a Very Bad Thing. Unless one has a barn in need of rodent control, all specimens of felis domesticus should be kept indoors as they really do not belong on this continent. I also do not like having to collect the corpses of the cats that periodically get run over in front of our house. (Rant over. On to the actual subject of the post.)

Being unwilling to sponsor the neighborhood Hunt Club any longer, I sadly took down our birdfeeders. Fortunately, we do have a small walled patio where I was able to install one pole in a large tub that held annuals over the summer and hang two mesh sunflower feeders. Birds, not being birdbrains in the pejorative sense of that term, have found their way to the free food. Over the last couple of days, we have had

• a pair of white-breasted nuthatches
• chickadees
• titmice
• house finches
• cardinals
• juncos
• at least one goldfinch
• house sparrows (who have not gotten the memo that they don't like sunflower seeds)

and of course, squirrels.