So I am curious what a degus is. I thought maybe it was auto correct for dog, but you had dog below.

You are a bird lovin woman! My husband loves birds, but we both agreed I would not do well with one. This is one he fell in love with. I felt bad that I was the reason he couldn't enjoy having this little one :(
Attachment 8280

My cat is a great joy. She follows me everywhere and if I am making jewelry she is right there with me. Whatever I do she is there and often times riding on my shoulder if I can handle it. Here she is hanging out on top of our pilot watching my husband and daughter run up and down a sledding hill with our pups.
Attachment 8281

The dogs are a whole other story!

Thanks for sharing winic1

Jace

Oops...here's the bird.

Attachment 8282

MrsD great picture. Would love to see more. I am a picture girl. Can I buy that metal apparatus at the garden store? I could not picture before what you were talking about. Do now! :)

Do you have purple finches too? My neighbors tell me we do. I haven't seen one yet but I'm hoping I will soon. This weekend we will be buying the bird supplies.

Do you have a bird bath for the winter with a warmer on it? I'm wondering if I should do that.

This morning I sat down and made a bracelet. It's been a busy week so one was all I had in me but I'm glad I accomplished something.
Attachment 8283

It's for a wonderful nurse I have.

Ooooh... the bracelet is nice. I also like your black cat... we tend to adopt black ones, as they are not popular and get euthanized!

We have 3 kinds of finches. Only one type seems to stay the summer though, the Goldfinches.

1) The American Goldfinches (which are in my current photos)..

2) pine siskins
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/pine_siskin/id
ours do not have yellow wing bands

3) purple finches
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/p...m_medium=email
These seem to leave in warmer weather. They probably nest upNorth with the pine siskins.

In winter I have all 3 types at our front feeder with the sunflower chips.

You can use a square suet holder which are common in stores, and even Lowe's and WalMart sometimes have them, as a nesting dispenser.
This one I have was a gift from a friend....
http://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/Stok...FagWMgodvAsA4w
This can be very inexpensive, but more $$ at more upscale stores. We use this in winter to provide corn cobs for the squirrels.
another at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Stokes-Select-...eder+squirrels

If you have any feed stores near you check them out. They typically have lots of types of feeders for less money.

I'm not really one to watch birds, we have so many around here, they often drive me a bit crazy. Sometimes they are so noisy I have to shut the windows!!

But lately there's been a trio of Northern Flickers hanging around that have been interesting to watch. They make weird noises and have been doing weird dances. I assume that 2 are males and 1 is a female and they are courting her.

We also have regular woodpeckers that come to our yard and there's a pair of pileated woodpeckers nesting nearby that I see often.

Lots of great blue herons, owls, hawks, blue jays and many song birds that I can't identify but are sometimes so loud and irritating, especially when I"m trying to sleep!! LOL!!

Starr

As we live in the country, my feeders are busy. We get lots of chickadees, yellow and purple finches, red wing blackbirds, woodpeckers, humming birds, starlings, robins, sparrows, swallows, nuthatches, doves, pheasants and blue jays. All those birds attract hawks and eagles. The latter are ENORMOUS.

Climate change is also bringing some unexpected visitors, including the occasional oriole and cardinal.

We live on the ocean, so I also enjoy watching the shore birds.

I've always loved birds.

It is hard to grasp now (the new research data) that they are really modern dinosaurs! But watching the Hawks at Cornell's cam, certainly makes that evolution easier to accept! ;)

I have some photos in my profile. Both of our home birds and upNorth birds.

When they are newborns, you can really see the dinosaur in the bird.

One of my cats is only cuddly when she is in the bathroom sink. Why? Only she knows. But if she sees you heading anywhere towards the bathroom, she's off like a flash to get in there and up in the sink before you get there. Gonna kill me running through my feet one day. The other cat is ADD, wanders in the room, "oh hi, nice to see you, sure pet me but I gotta go now" and is gone in a second or two. He's big and clutzy and dumb and grey, he's definitely gonna kill me tripping me someday, he also likes to come up and stand just a millimeter behind you while you're at the kitchen sink or something like that, so then when you go to turn and move Dang Cat is tangled in your feet and you're desperately grabbing at counters or walls so you don't kill yourself or cat falling over him. He also sees you coming and decides that running between your feet, which really means right into your shins at full force (and he's a big 14 lb guy) is the best way to get out of the way.

Parrot would definitely be a bad choice around anyone with a sensitive head. Not always the best choice even if you have a normal head. Finches are less personal pet-like, some are noisy, others are softer, but they are always active and fun to watch. Spice finches are very quiet, Society (Bengalese) are a very good starter bird, easy, friendly, personable (for a finch), and not too expensive. There are many many others available, the difficulty of keeping and the prices go way up.

A degu is a Chilean ground squirrel. Sometimes they're called Mini chinchillas, but they're not just a smaller version of a chinchilla, they're different. Very active, diurnally, tho, very friendly, very cute.

http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...an42012365.jpg
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/winic1/329.jpg

This is the bathroom sink cat, Ferrari:
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/winic1/551.jpg

This is the big, dumb, clutzy but lovable cat, Lamborghini:
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...1/100_3671.jpg
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/winic1/027.jpg

Look up Degu on youtube sometime, there's all kinds of videos posted, they're just wonderful when you see them in action.