my neighbors & I are dealing with this now only it's a little sparrow....it's the same sparrow who has been walking around more than flying all winter. It flies to the scrub trees on our property line & sits & then comes down to my neighbors car. When she leaves it goes to mine, mine leaves it goes to my other neighbor. We all live in close proximity. All other times it stays at my neighbors chimney....Long , silver & very reflective. It also pecks at our house windows & all windows of the cars. The poop is ridiculous. Two of us have bags on our mirrors but it doesn't much help as it goes to the other windows. It's a pain in the butt having to either wash the car or remove & retie the bags all the time. I tried putting a mirror on the end of the deck, where the bird can surely see it but it hasn't worked yet. We are going crazy! P.S. I tried the mirror in our tree where the bird feeders are but removed it as a woodpecker darn near drove itself crazy by flitting at it for a solid afternoon. Worried about it harming itself I removed it. At wits end in Nova Scotia.Bird vs mirror

My winter daphne is also just about to bloom (see image link below). I planted it Fall 2007 and wasn't really that interested in it, other than it had nice glossy and variegated evergreen foliage. Then it bloomed last January and - wow! - the fragrance was incredible. We could smell it throughout the backyard. Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Daphne pic

Our doves did try to eat some of the rice I threw out for them as I had read that someone had said they liked rice. Yesterday I noticed that our baby doves were sitting alone but we were also aware that the Mom and Dad were close by watching over them. Late in the day a Blue Jay was after the two little ones sitting in thier nest. Both parents decended on the Blue Jay until he flew away. Neither of the parents went back to the nest; we were concerned that they wouldn't make it to the next day. To our joy we found the Mom sitting on the nest early in the morning. However later both parents were away from the baby doves. Late this afternoon I was thrilled to witness both the Mom and Dad at the nest; Mom was feeding the little ones. And later - no parents, no baby doves. They had left the nest. My previous witness of all four of them together must have been the LAST family gathering. My question is: Do the parents stay with thier young long enough to teach them full flying lessons or do they kick them out of the nest and expect them to survive on thier own?

We had daily visits from cardinals immediately after hanging our new birdfeeder this spring. Unfortunately, we also attracted all the neighborhood squirrels, english (?) sparrows, and rats! We gave up on the birdfeeder after the squirrels killed two plants underneath and pulled the birdfeeder down; it was a good try. Now our fountain attracts a pair of catbirds and the sparrows daily, the cardinals occasionally, and a pair of doves just recently. One of the pools in the fountain seems to be just the right depth for baths! The rats seem to have moved in under our porch despite the removal of the feeder, where we piled some bricks and rocks from garden excavations. Apparently we need to clear it all out to convince the rats that not only will we not feed them, but we won't house them, either. Sigh. Our campaign to attract birds continues, however. We just replaced some sad-looking lilacs by our porch (moved them elsewhere) with Black Beauty elderberry, which we are hoping will contribute to a bird feast this fall. We also just added a blue princess holly and her prince, and a couple of low-bush blueberries. Susan