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The one fall clean-up I do in my backyard entails bringing in backyard furnishings, hoses, and plant helps for the winter. I favor to depart plant seed heads as meals and spent plant stems and leaves as habitat. Admittedly, all this plant particles can look fairly messy, particularly to the eyes of those that favor a neat backyard. However messiness brings its personal pleasures.
After weeks of weirdly heat and moist climate, it lastly turned seasonably chilly and snowy within the second half of January. One morning, I appeared out my huge bed room window to see just a few dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) feeding within the entrance backyard. Juncos are small sparrow-like birds. They reside year-round in Maine, however I’m almost definitely to see them in fall and winter, and I consider them as winter birds. On today, their feathers had been fluffed out for insulation towards the chilly, and so they appeared like so many little balls.
The subsequent morning introduced a bigger group of juncos to the entrance backyard, the place they went to work gleaning as a lot meals as potential from the seed heads of noticed beebalm (Monarda punctata). I stood and watched them for fairly a while. Though they’re referred to as floor feeders, these juncos had been largely perched on the plant stems, swaying within the breeze and busily pecking on the seeds. Occasionally, one or two would hop right down to the bottom to feed on seeds and 
chaff dislodged from the seed heads and now littered on the floor of the snow.
I might not have had the pleasure of watching these juncos feeding proper outdoors my window if it weren’t for my messy winter backyard.
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