A few weeks ago, I wrote about the birds nesting in our yard. All of the babies left the nests shortly after my post, and I thought baby season was over. I was wrong! Before I could even clean out/replace the birdhouse used by the bluebirds, a new pair (or maybe the same pair) started setting up house. The wren nest in the carport didn’t get reused, but wrens set up another nest in the corner of the fence around our side yard.

As soon as the new batch of babies fly the nest, I am going to replace the current house favored by the bluebirds because not only is it literally falling apart, it is also difficult to clean out. Kenn said that we can build new houses and, while we can, I plan to buy new houses. This one and this one are my choices; they will be easy to clean and the opening is reinforced to protect from squirrel damage.

I also need to thank Suzassippi for introducing me to suet pellets. I didn’t know such a thing existed until she mentioned them in her blog. At our last house, I always put out blocks of suet dough for the birds, but the raccoons put an end to that when we moved to The Cabin. No matter where I located the suet feeder, the raccoons would find it and polish off the whole block of suet overnight. As much as I love caring for the critters, I’m not willing to put out a new block of suet every day. Suet pellets to the rescue! I’m now mixing the pellets into the songbird blend that I use in my regular bird feeder, and I bought a separate feeder for the pellets. It took the birds a while to find the new feeder, but now that they have, I have to refill it regularly. Even better, the squirrels/raccoons have not hauled off the pellet feeder or removed the top and dumped the contents. Of course, I have now probably jinxed things and will find an empty feeder on the ground tomorrow.😂

Lastly, the barn swallows (maybe?) that build a nest on or near our downspout every year do seem to be incubating eggs this year! The nest is in a difficult place to monitor, but I finally managed to a fairly decent picture of one of the parents in the nest. Here’s hoping we’ll see babies soon!

So, do you feed wildlife – birds or otherwise?