Highlights of the day

So if you were a bird, you should feel very welcome at my house. Or at least outside my house (inside, you would have to contend with Hank, who would stalk, torment, kill and eviscerate you; and with Pancake, who would run around you a bunch of times and bark, whine and try to throw you in the air like a stick: warning, she eats sticks after splintering them into thousands of slivers. But I do have some composting worms hanging around the kitchen that would make you happy if you are part of the thrush family. And if you had opposable thumbs and could open their Rubbermaid home).
But outside my house in the back yard is an inviting habitat for you birds. There are two feeders filled with safflower seeds, which the mastermind squirrels have not invaded and sabotaged for two days now. There are three suet cages with a variety of suet cakes for the discerning avian creature. There is a metal feeder with wriggling live mealworms bedded in cornmeal. And there is fresh fruit, oh yes, and a bit of veggies left from my morning juice (beets, carrots, apples, orange and ginger root). There is a white oak and lots of underbrush, piles of sticks and scrub and shrubs. On the edge of the woods.
So, please, stop by and visit. There are plenty of friends already here for you: titmice, cardinals, chickadees (likely hybridizing Carolina and black-capped), towhees, robins, finches house and American gold, northern mockingbirds, sparrows of many ilk, blue jays, woodpeckers galore (mostly downy and hairy, with some assertive red-bellied and a couple of here today, gone tomorrow pileated); blackbirds and cowbirds, some Carolina wrens, starlings and mourning doves and I daresay a few grackles; hawks circle overhead but haven't stopped in. Beware the clutches of plotting squirrels... Oh, I almost forgot, out front I am starting to establish a hummingbird feeding station around the butterfly bush. Yes, the flowers are fake. The hummingbirds aren't supposed to know that so please, if you are not a hummingbird, don't tell. And if you are a hummingbird, forget the fake part of what I said -- there are flowers of nectar for you, so please, hummingbirds, come on down.