First...

... out of the gate! Guess who..

I had been leaving my bird feeders empty to try to discourage all the grackles who were bullying the songbirds off the perches and gobbling up all the seed in minutes! 

Today I decided it was time to try again as not only had the flock of grackles taken off, so had all my favourite songbirds! My garden was bird-less! And that was not my plan! Even the hawk hadn't bothered to come around now that there was now nothing on the menu.

So, I filled up all the feeders this morning and anxiously waited for the cardinal, jays ,finches, sparrows and maybe even a woodpecker to fly in, but who showed up? Yep...the neighbourhood chipmunk! No-one else....not a single bird....just a chipmunk followed by the resident squirrels .

It wasn't until late in the afternoon that an actual bird noticed there was food again! And then it was only two goldfinches, a purple finch, one robin and two  - you guessed it - grackles!  (extra) 

Surely by tomorrow, word will have spread and once again I will have a garden alive with birds....and bird-blip-ops!  I sure miss having those emergency blip-ops!