Our Carolina Wrens are still around. I only saw and heard one yesterday, so possibly one has moved on. I hope not. They are very cute. I also saw my first red-breasted nuthatch yesterday. We don't always have them, although according to most field guides they should be here year-round. He was just hanging out in our bird tree-where the suet feeder is. They are the cutest little bird. I thought at first he was a Chickadee, but got out the binocs and it was definitely a red-breasted nuthatch.

I hope this will be a year where the "winter" finches arrive. The Common Redpoll is such a cute little bird, and we haven't had them in several years. Usually when we have red-breasted nuthatches, we have the Redpolls too. Time will tell.

We decided to take a drive to the lakeshore Sunday, and we always pass by a landfill that usually has plenty of Turkey Vultures. Well, this day there were lots. This is a picture of some on the Cell tower they like to rest on. There were plenty more soaring above the landfill that we didn't get pictures of. Just one more sign that migration is well under way.

We still have a pair of Carolina Wrens hanging around the back yard. We noticed them about 1 month ago, and were extremely excited they were there, but had not seen them again until today as both of them were hopping around on our deck. We have never had Carolina Wrens before, but have had plenty of customers in the last few years that have seen them sporadically in their yards. They are so easy to spot with that stripe over their eyes. I have to put out my tray feeder in hopes that they will stay the winter, and hopefully I can get some pictures of them.

This is our finch feeder that is attached to our kitchen window. It is a very busy place these days. They seem to fight for position with each other too. Most of them are babies-note the black beaks. Our 2 cats really enjoy the activity. They spend a lot of time sitting and staring at them until they think the birds have had enough and then they hit the window with their paw and the birds fly away. This is not our only nyjer feeder, we have another one hanging in the tree out back too. The amazing thing is that our Chickadees really like to eat from these feeders too. We never had that before, but the last couple of years the Chickadees seem to enjoy the nyjer seed too. Maybe our Chickadee population has grown and there are more of them than we have had in years past.

Fall is officially here. I spotted my first Junco yesterday. Not only that, but we had White-throated Sparrows in the yard too. I guess our hummingbird must have made it at least out of our yard. Hopefully he got enough to make it to the next feeder and so on. Our nyjer feeders are emptying out in a day. The goldfinches are ravenous. We filled the Nyjer feeders yesterday morning and re-filled them again last night just before dark. The regular feeders are going down at an extremely rapid pace too. We have seen Turkey Vultures and Hawks migrating together too. We decided to take a drive through the countryside yesterday-it was a beautiful, but cold, day and we just couldn't resist. Our leaves are very quickly starting to turn. Fall is one of the best times of the year-I just don't care for what comes next.

This poor little humingbird showed up at our feeder on Sunday evening looking pretty stressed. He was still there on Monday, and when we returned home from work he was still there. We are not rehabilitators, so we started calling some around town, to no avail. We were hoping Tuesday morning he would have regained enough strength to move on-but no. We finally contacted someone Tuesday and they recommended we try to force feed him-or her. Here is Charlie getting him to drink. He fed him every 10-15 minutes for about 1 hour and the hummingbird finally refused to drink anymore. Well, to our great pleasure he was gone Tuesday evening. We scoured the yard to see if he was around, but he seems to have moved on. We still encourage anyone who has found any bird in their yard to NOT take it upon yourself to rescue it. Please try to contact someone who is licensed to at least give you advice on what you should do.