Free Bird

We have a lot of fowl living at S4311 (11 ducks and 8 potential ducks, 2 geese, and 32 chickens, to be exact), but there are a lot of wild birds that call our house and yard home, as well.
Here's the phoebe's nest that was built above an upstairs bedroom window last week.

Here's the front door of the bluebird house. There were eggs in there a few weeks ago, but no peeps coming from inside yet.

Here's three hummingbirds belly up to the bar.

Lots of hummingbird nectar recipes call for a lot more sugar, but I make mine with one part sugar to four parts water. I just heat and stir a bit until its dissoved, I never boil the water, and I never add any food coloring. I make a gallon or so's worth at a time and store the extra in a pitcher in my refrigerator. With two feeders that are busy everyday throughout the summer, this lasts me a good while. Last summer friends came over and we made perfect not-too-sweet mojitos with this diluted simple syrup, which made me feel like I could be a contender for the bronze medal in the country-chic/multitasking olympics.
p.s. Free Bird is a cliche song only because its really, really good.