That is totally our thing lol! Watching our outdoor birds. I love it. Sitting on our deck in the morning we see such a variety :0)

Heres a slide show, that I have posted before, of some of our regulars.

We have 8 feeders plus a few peanut plates.

http://www.slide.com/r/gBi5...

Hope you post some pictures :0)

You've got a lot of company on this one Alicen. I don't know what I'd do without the abundance of birds I'm blessed with here in the Kern River Valley.

Tchudilowsky:  WOW!  That is some show you have out there.  Beautiful pictures.  Made me forget we have (or had, we don't this year), grossbeaks.  They're BEAUTIFUL!  Bet the bluebirds love the peanut butter.  Or is it just peanuts?  I'm going to have to watch your show again -- this time, a little more slowly, the better to appreciate it.  Thanks for sharing it. 

Sam - I thought this might resonate with a lot of people.  And I'll bet the Kern River Valley is a heaven (haven) for your birds.  I say "your" birds, because they are, at least while you're seeing them!  I love to watch them. 

its the little things in life that make it so amazing :o)

 When I was young at at home with my parents, there was this huge picture window in the kitchen dining area of the house and one of those tables with no legs, there was a bench seat that went around the two sides along the two walls.  The table was held up by one chrome pipe that went under one side of the bench.  When we sold the house, I sure wish I had taken that bench and table, it was right out of the 50's.

Any way, from that picture window, you'd see every kind of bird in the area.  The birds liked the pine trees and all the berries in the yard and my Dad kept the humming bird feeder full.  After a good size rain, you could see the rainbow from that window.

We also saw that drunken Indian That lost his license to drive,  next he drove in on a tractor to the bar,  next he road in on a bicycle to the bar,, each time he got caught, the last time we saw him, he was riding in to the bar on a horse,  never seen him any more after that.

We saw a lot of things from that window, some time it beet the heck out of watching TV, but then we only had three stations that would come in all the time and a few that would slowly come in and fade out before the movie was over.  Yep, no cable and at the most was five stations on the tube and we watched what our parents watched. 

That's right kids, No Cable, No Cell Phones, No I Pods, No Video's, ,No Video games, No nothing but house work, yard work, walking to the store,  ONLY ONE TV IN THE WHOLE HOUSE

Damn, we had it rough, didn't we.

 Our blue jays love peanuts :-) Someone on these blogs had posted that they like meal worms too but I have not tried that yet.

 murphyslaw:  I wish you could have taken that table, too.  Those relics from the past were more than just relics from the past. 

We had a table similar to that.  It was a built-in breakfast nook with benches on each side and a chair at the end.  Daddy got the chair.  There wasn't much to see from there; one window looked out on the back porch, which was screened-in, but it was small.  My mother's washing machine was out there (we lived in the South), and she had a couple of clotheslines to use when it was raining.  When there wasn't any wash on the lines, we could see into the storage area of the back of the garage.  The cat usually had its kittens in there.  Back in those days there wasn't a TV; there were shelves between the breakfast area and the kitchen, and there was a radio on one of the shelves.  My dad listened to baseball games, and we (my sisters and I) listened to the popular radio shows of the day (such as "The Shadow"; and there were many others).

We must have had birds grandmaw (that's an expression meaning lots of birds), but birds didn't impress me until I moved where I am now, where there are more open fields.  We do see deer, especially in the fall and early spring.  We enjoy our bird-watching.

tchudilowsky:  We think the blue jays are pretty, but we don't encourage them.  I think they have a tendency to try to run the other birds away, and that's not something I want.  There don't seem to be all that many anyway.  But they're beautiful, and they're beautiful in flight.  I can just see my husband putting out peanuts for blue jays.  (Not.)  He'd never get done with the "fertilizer"!

 Tiffanilynn:  You're absolutely right about the little things.  And little beautiful things multiply in life until there are many beautiful memories.  We may not as easily remember blizzards as the beauty of summer with its bounty of sights and sounds.  (I have a little bit of alliteration going there, don't I?)

Tchudilowsky:  I misspelled "grosbeaks."  I KNOW they're not "grossbeaks"; it's a matter of typing commonly spelled words when they are anything but common.  And speaking of grosbeaks, I thought I might have seen a female grosbeak the other day, but it was just for a fleeting moment, and she flew away.  I haven't seen her again.  When we used to feed sunflower seeds to the birds, the grosbeaks were the most fun to watch eating them.  They'd have them pounded out in no time flat.  Their beaks are perfect for them.  (Rather like cardinals, as a matter of fact.)

When I was working we put in a substation and pole line to some generators for Simi Tropic water systems out by Wasco..its on Wild Wood and hwy 46..if you follow the pole lines to the canal system where the generators are located you couldn't believe the variety of birds back in there..at dusk they woud start flying in from all over the county..Birds that look like they belonged  in the Florida Everglades..

After we installed the system our company had to maintain.. train their personel and run the whole thing for 6 months as per the contract agreement..I was one of the Journeymen Electricians who had the responsibility of working 12 hour shifts so I was out there alone many hours for the whole 6 months after we built it.

You could stand and watch the black birds and doves water fowl etc..come flying in every evening for a solid 45 minutes to an hour..the sky was black with all kinds of birds...they came in because of all the fish that live in the canals and ponds out there..they had massive quantity's of fish back in there because no one was allowed to fish ....

In fact so many were available when they would put the poison in the canal system that removed the oxygen from the water to kill the weeds it also took out piles and piles of catfish bass sucker fish etc..the dead fish would block the system up so badly at the pump stations they would have to scoop  them out and put them in huge piles to dry..after a few days they would light them on fire..WHEW whatta smell that was..

Even after those radical control effort that are done  every year the birds still flock in to roost and raise their young..its a something not many people get to see living around here..it was so awesome many times it took my breath away..too bad its on Private land because I'm sure it would be a popular tourist attraction for bird lovers right here in our very own backyard..

Alicen--my three-year-old son was in the backyard a few days ago and said "Look, Mama.  That big green bird is back."  Sure enough, it was one of those big, lime green parrots.  They love the sunflowers I have growing.  I've had huge flocks of birds descend on my tiny patch of sunflowers.  If you can stand the pollen (doesn't bother me) grow a little stand of sunflowers--the birds will love 'em.

Cat we have a large raised garden box full of the big sunflowers right now..just had to beat the kids sheep out of them tonight so birds arent the only critters that like em.. .;o)-

 Sunflowers and sunflower seeds.  Sometimes we'd get "volunteer" sunflowers from the sunflower seeds.  Occasionally one or two would fall into a flower pot (of all places) and just take off.  It was fun watching the path of the sunflowers, too:  it was the first time I ever really knew why they were called "sun" flowers -- they actually follow the sun.  At dusk they'd be facing due west.  It was fascinating, when the sunflowers at last made seeds:  they'd bow their heavy heads and birds would have a chance to show off their acrobatic styles.  It was fun to watch them crawling upside down at some crazy angle picking those seeds out. 

SiouxCity:  never knew sheep liked sunflowers.  Yours aren't making seeds yet, are they?  Also, your story of the dead fish reminds me of the year -- several years ago -- when smelt were washing up on the beaches of Lake Michigan dead as doornails and smelling to high heaven.  My memory of that was that it seemed to be a mystery.  Can't remember what "Da Mare" said about that. 

Catherine:  Lime green parrots.  They sound beautiful.  I do believe your climate is somewhat more "tropical" than where I live.  I think of parrots living in jungles somewhere. 

I have a sister living in the 'burbs of Baton Rouge.  There's a pond behind her house, and there's every kind of bird and varmint imaginable.  One year they even had those little animals used for fur coats,and I can't remember the animal's name.  She used to hand feed one of them.  Of course, there were a couple of years my brother-in-law would feed an alligator, too, but they believe that he (the alligator!!!) left for happier hunting grounds.  Everybody was happy about that.