After days of miserable heat, humidity and no rain in the Twin Cities, a break finally occurred yesterday. In the few days before, birds were quiet and looked uncomfortable with their wings drooping and panting, even when in the shade.

The last twenty-four hours brought loads of rain and loads of chirpy birds. It was practically a party of brown birds on my window ledge this morning with hoards of house finches, house sparrows and chickadees:

Usually the house finches chase off the house sparrows, but this morning both species were tolerant of each other and eating in harmony. What a nice alarm clock.

Sometimes I'll smudge some suet on the walls for chickadees and woodpeckers, this morning a young sparrow decided to give clinging a try. I started to tell the bird that it's not supposed to be able to do that, but when does it do any good to tell the young what they can't do?

For all those who don't care for house sparrows and think they're dangerous, rest assured with the above photo that the chickadees had their fill of the suet too.