Why I Oughta...

Back in November of 2017, we installed a heated birdbath out in the backyard near our feeders that are located right outside of our kitchen windows .  This was the same feeder that we had in our house at Elmhurst but was in storage for a couple of years.  It is a heated one that doesn't have a pedestal, so I've set it on a little table.  Then about a year ago, I added a Water Wiggler to make the water move a bit .  Turns out, the Wiggler, while great to keep potential mosquitos from using the bath, made it hard for birds to actually use the bath as anything other than a drinking fountain. Also, earlier this Winter, I came across this upgraded heated bird bath at Wannemakers and thought it would be a nice addition, but ultimately I didn't pull the trigger on it. For this Winter, I decided to just dump the Wiggler and plug in the existing free-standing bath in to keep the water from freezing.  And for the past few months, I've watched a few curious birds check out

Back a few weeks ago, I posted a photo of a Red-Bellied Woodpecker that had visited us on our suet feeder as the first documented bird since I was gifted the Field Guide to Birds of Illinois by Nat and the kids for Christmas.  When I posted that, I also created a new tag here on the blog [ Bird Visitor Log ].  That's now a *thing* here on the blog.  And this, becomes the second entry. I snapped that photo above through the kitchen windows (and screens) of what I'm pretty sure is a House Sparrow perched on our feeder.  According to the Field Guide (which you can see below), this is the #1 bird to get to your feeders.  So, that fact coupled with the feathers/patterns/colors make think that we're checking the "House Sparrow" box. From the entry in the book:  "When you put up a new bird feeder, there's a very good chance that the first bird to attend with be a House Sparrow." Turns out, it was introduced to North America from Europe in the