A flock of starlings

I'm still surprised that there's anything other than House sparrows hanging around as it's already December. The starlings have shown up in vast numbers in the last few days which make me wonder if they're getting ready to take off. There been 12 at any given time in my yard between the feeding stations and the trees.

They seem to have taken great pleasure in the heated bird bath and the suet. The bluejays are still making an occasional appearance as well as the woodpeckers (hairy), so I'm pretty much in a holding pattern.

The other day on my morning walk I noticed that the chickadees were extremely active and busy. It was such a lovely serenade...I stopped to watch them play in the trees (much to my puppy's dismay). I wish they would make their way over to my yard, but my guess is until the trees get bigger that's not going to happen as the house sparrows chase everybody away :(

The seed is running low so the birds are mainly on clean up duty these days...we've just gotten out first dusting of snow yesterday so I'm hoping they'll clean up the yard a bit!