My bird watching helper

Looks like Casey is also your photographer's assistant. Nice photos. I often see the same varieties of birds at my feeder. The first place I ever saw a black squirrel was in Ottawa (Canada), many years ago on a family vacation; a few years later, I learned that they're here in the Syracuse area. There were lots of them on the Syracuse University campus, and now I see them at my apartment complex too, along with the more common gray squirrels.

I've never seen a black squirrel! Pretty. I get throngs at my feeders when it's cold, too. I don't get starlings or English sparrows, as a rule. They tend to stay closer to town here. We get lots of cowbirds this time of year. I kind of hate to see them, as they lay their eggs in smaller birds' nests for others to raise. The larger chicks sometimes push the smaller ones out of the nest, and they get fed more. A brilliant strategy, really, but I'd rather feed the birds who are actually putting in the serious labor. What are you gonna do? Everyone is just trying to survive.

I would say there are more black than grey squirrels in our yard. I think there were five at my door one morning. There are a couple of grey ones too, and some small noisy red ones in the back. Yes the birds were very hungry yesterday. The coolest one to me was the Carolina wren, it appeared a few weeks ago and has stayed. I was worried about the robins and had fruit down for them too but I never saw them. They arrived last week.... a little too early as it turns out. Most birds manage in the snow, one thing I learned is that I never cut down my flower garden in the fall. I leave the old plants up so the wild birds can eat them during the winter.

That nice of you to put out water, I have a bird bath I fill daily in the summer too.

The cowbirds haven't arrived here yet, I've seen pictures of the tiniest prettiest birds feeding giant hungry cow bird babies... it seems so unfair but I guess you are right that is nature

I had a pair of cardinals nesting in my yard who raised two baby cowbirds along with their own three children.

I think our recent spell of warmer weather fooled a lot of the wild birds into thinking it was time to head north. I don't imagine they've been too happy with the single-digit (F) temperatures last week (it was in the high 60's to low 70's a few days earlier), or the nearly two feet of snow we got yesterday.

The cardinals are close enough in size to stand a chance with cowbirds, but wren and chickadee babies are at a real disadvantage. I try to do welfare checks on the local nests of the chickadees, wrens, phoebes and bluebirds before they start sitting on their eggs. Surprisingly, I haven't found any foreigners so far.

Has anyone seen that photo of a cardinal feeding a koi? That large open mouth looked just like a big baby bird's gape to that cardinal.

These bird species you guys have in the US and Canada really intrigue me. I've never heard of a cowbird before, let alone a cardinal, phoebe or koi - will have to look them up.

Caseysmom, I forgot to mention that we were amazed to see the lumps of ice amongst the bird seed in your photos, something we've never seen here.

Most of them manage okay in the low temps. Besides all their insulation, in the worst of it you can often see them huddled up on a branch, close to the trunk and on the lee side. They get into real trouble when their food sources are frozen over for days at a time.

My only copy of the cardinal feeding the fish photo is a grainy black and white. I did find this video of the same situation. What is called a black headed cardinal is just a regular northern cardinal who has lost all his head feathers at once. It's not all that rare.