Okay, @unk-p, I'm not being honest when I say I cannot afford to feed grackles.
The truth is that I do not like to feed grackles.
I do not like them, I say.
You do not like them? So you said.
Try them! Try them! And you may.
So I tried them, two loads of seed they ate,
And all the suet which is a cake, (a cake that I did bake).
The suet was for the peckers of wood.
And all the other birds wait their turn, like they should.
But not the grackles, nay, not they.
They just take over, and eat all they may.
And the other little birds? They have gone away.
@jeanne-mayell ❤️❤️❤️ This! I feed birds and other wild life in my little Sanctuary garden. Here? It's not so much the grackles as it is the Brown headed cowbirds. All winter I had many finches. Purple finches,Goldfinches,House finches,Pine Siskins and more! The titmice,the Carolina chickadees,Carolina wrens,Northern Cardinals,BlueJays and so many more. Now? Crowds of Brown Headed cowbirds have come- gobbling all the seed as they court,mate and search for host nests to lay their eggs. I really struggle to find any good in their presence... the most I can appreciate is they have a lovely,liquid call/song and Creator made them for a purpose. Fabulous poem!!❤️
@journeywithme2 @unk-p, one readers here sent me to a site that explained that I need to replace my big all purpose feeder with small tube feeders that are specialized with species-specific feed. I don't mind feeding Grackles and squirrels if they would not crowd out the other birds, but they do. I haven't had time to try the small tube-feeding process. Maybe it will help.
Since I've been unemployed for a while, I've taken up a sort of silly hobby to take my mind off things. My mom found a 3D puzzle thing last Christmas and got it for me. I loved doing it, so she started buying more of them. They're a great way to pass time, and since they require a lot of concentrated focus to assemble, they also distract me from my current situation. They're printed on heavy puzzle stock, so they're fairly sturdy but can be very tedious and difficult to put together at times. Since I have nothing better to do, I thought I'd post some photos of the ones I've done so far. I apologize in advance for the poor photography on some of them...I'm terrible with cameras.
St Mark's again
The second one was a lot more intricate and more fun to do because it's got LED light accents. It's a replica of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow and took nearly six hours over two days.
St Basil's again
This one was a bit disappointing. Although it looks okay, it's pretty tiny and was honestly too easy to do. It only took about 90 minutes. There's only one photo of it because it literally looks exactly the same from every side (just like the original ;-) )
The most recent one is the Burj Khalifa replica that I just finished today. Although it was again pretty intricate, it really only took about 4 hours to put together. It's nearly five feet tall and also has LED lighting. This photo is with flash to give the best view