I make sure my two large bird house totems face outward, one on each side of my front door. I want the birds in my neighborhood to feel welcome. There are a multitude of birds that come to our five feeders, which I keep well supplied with anything from sunflower seed to thistle to suet and when the warm weather arrives I put out nectar I make especially for the hummingbirds. That does not even include the birdseed I scatter on the ground for the birds who prefer to feed there.
Last year there were three birds nesting in our vicinity. An eastern phoebe built a nest above the right front door light although there might have been too much traffic there for her to be successful in raising her young. A nest was built there two years in a row.
A scarlet tanager raised a family in a bird box stationed at a large white pine a foot higher feet than my head less than an hundred feet away from our entrance although I never spotted the brightly colored male. I had never seen one before.
A catbird made a nest in the thicket of one gigantic bush in the corner of our yard. One of our cats found the nest and flushed the young catbird out of the bush and we shooed the cat away immediately. The frightened baby bird hopped into the open garage chirping in fright. My son who happened to be at my house first had to move a table and a filing cabinet out of the garage to reach the scared little bird who had hopped deep into the cluttered garage. He trapped the baby bird carefully scooped up into a little box without touching it and safely released it back into the overgrown bush where its nest lay.
I want all the birds in our neighborhood to know they are welcome to visit our premises and raise their young. Every day I watch them come to and fro our feeders. Soon I will put out nectar for our hummingbird feeders and watch the miniature “helicopters” come back and forth and jostle for position at their feeders. We will have one feeder at the window just so we can watch them closeup.
There is such a variety of birds that come to our feeders. The magnificent ten inch long red bellied woodpecker with its gorgeously marked red head occasionally feeds on our suet feeder 
(which I have placed right next to the trunk of the large white pine tree) and there is his companion–the smaller downy woodpecker which stands at attention as it climbs up and down the trunk of the same tree also feeding on the suet. Then there is the diminutive brown creeper who is aptly named who also feeds on the suet and my favorite–the fearless chickadee whose antics I always love watching.
This is, of course, an incomplete list. I want them all to feel welcome and the birds continue to come here in a constant stream. I joyously greet them each morning and watch them all day and never know when an odd bird makes its appearance like the indigo buntings that seem to come through here once or twice a year in flocks. I never know for sure what I will see outside my window. I want the birds to always feel welcome.
Tags: baby bird, bird house totems, bird migration, bird nest, bird-feeders, bird-watching, birds, birds are welcome, birdseed, brown creeper, catbird, cats, chickadee, downy woodpecker, eastern phoebe, hummingbird feeders, hummingbirds, indigo bunting, my son, nectar, pets, red bellied woodpecker, scarlet tanager, suet, sunflower seed, thistle, white pine tree, woodpecker
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