I don’t want to hijack the thread but I’m going to post about birds. I follow two eagle threads on Facebook. In Minnesota the bonded pair have been building their nest and are now flirting. Eggs expected within the month. Similar on front range Colorado. But my joy are the birds I feed. This is our first year on our farm and although we fed birds in the suburbs, we’re getting more variety. The gold finches are starting to turn gold and there are dozens of them. We have what is either a sparrow or a large finch, ground feeders but the ubiquitous juncos chase them off. We call them badger birds because they have black and white striped heads. Lots of chicidees and purple finches. A few cardinals. Yellow bellied sap suckers and Donnie’s. We live about 40 miles west of KCMO.
How close are you to the Mo./Ks border? Truly birds are not a hijacking-they are part of gardening.
Wrens for example are territorial birds who like to eat protein rather than berries. They will help drive off the birds that would steal your black berries etc.
Hubby had a book that he used to use to identify birds. He goes through phases, and that one was a long time ago-still have the book somewhere - Also the Gibbons books on wild food.