It may look ugly to the neighbors, but it’s beauteous to the birds, especially the Dark-eyed Juncos!

In the summer, these pots are filled with beautiful, colored petunias, which the birds pretty much ignore, but when the nights turn cold and the frost starts to nip at the blossoms and leaves turning them cracked and brown, the birds start to take notice, especially (and almost exclusively) the Dark-eyed Juncos.

I found out juncos love petunia seeds by accident. They love them so much they will fly up to the flowerpots on your deck and peck away at the little dried seedpods for hours and days on end.

One Autumn, when I was supposed to empty out the flowerpots and tidy up a bit for the coming winter, I didn't. I forgot about the pots and just left them sit on the deck, all weedy and dead, which was the best thing I could have done -- for my juncos, and for my family, because now we get to watch them peck and pick and forage in the brown, withered vines of the long-dead plants all winter.

The first winter I witnessed this, I thought it was an anomaly, but it’s not. They returned the next year for more of the magic seeds. Now I have pots on my deck and pots on the ground, and I also plant them around the back yard too. Our junkies enjoy popping up and nipping at the seeds for a good part of winter. They usually start munching about mid-January, and true to form, today when I came home from work, three were on the deck foraging in the pots. The seeds are so tiny, I don’t know how they even find them, but they do and they love them.

So next Autumn, don't be so neat. The juncos will love you for it.

Hey Sarah! This Tufted Titmouse is for you.

We have a Tufted Titmouse that shows up at our feeders once or twice a day. He seems to be coming a little more regularly now. Not bad for the suburbs.

“Hmm…what do we have here?” 

"Peanuts! Don't mind if I do, but just a little nut 

and then I have to fly. I am a busy little bird."

…and our Mocking bird usually drops in once or twice a day.

“Dude! That busy little Titmouse was right. 

This is the place for peanuts.”

Cardinals greet me when I arrive home.

The first thing I do when I arrive home is look out my back window at our feeders. The cardinals were especially sweet today.

These brave souls hung around even though a Cooper's Hawk was watching them one tree over.