For weeks now our yards have been surprisingly - I say "spookily" - empty of birds. Our normal Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Carolina Wrens and Red-bellied Woodpeckers have been almost total absent since early or mid September. Even visits by White-winged Doves and House Sparrows have been few and far between, although I can't say I'm too upset by this.
Luckily, a couple of our resident species have still been visiting regularly, with the most frequent visitors to our feeders being two Northern Mockingbirds.
Our sole winter resident to date, an Orange-crowned Warbler, usually comes to get suet once or twice a day also.
I've tried everything I know to bring back our missing resident birds. I've put peanuts and peanut butter on our fences. I've hung up more suet feeders. I've put up a new sunflower seed tube-feeder. I've added a platform feeder with sunflower seeds, nuts and other goodies. Nothing has worked yet.
My wife suspects that our birds have been deterred by the caged birds that a new neighbor has put in the yard next to ours. I suspect a more probable cause is another new neighbor. This one moved in a few weeks ago and perches on our rooftops and trees!
Pleasant Surprise
Early last week I was sitting in my home office when I noticed what looked like an Eastern Bluebird sitting on our back fence. I grabbed my camera and ran outside. No fewer than 4 Bluebirds were in our yard! So that was a nice - and unexpected - addition to our list of yardbirds.
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What you describe is pretty much what's been happening in my yard recently. We seem to go through a period like this every year around this time. My theory has been that there is plenty of wild food available now and that has caused the birds to disperse more widely. They always begin to return by the end of this month and I expect this year will be no different.
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