Birdfeeders

I have really enjoyed keeping some basic records of sightings in our yard. When I started, I simply wrote on the calendar when summer arrivals appeared and when they vanished in the fall. This is helpful so you know when to put out the oriole bird feeders and hummingbird feeders if they are not year around residents. In our area, orioles arrive in March, raise their young and are gone by mid September. There is no reason to leave the oriole bird feeders up the rest of the time. However, we have some hummingbirds all year long, so we never take all these feeders down. Because our winter population is much smaller than our summer population, we take down all but one hummingbird feeder during the winter. Over the years, we have noticed and recorded much more information about the birds visiting our yard, so now we prefer to keep a notebook which is organized by month. However you decide to record your observations, it is really interesting to compare notes from year to year and from season to season.