The first year we moved into our new house we started finding mouse droppings in the basement. Didn't think much of it, I figure mice are pretty much everywhere so I put out a few traps. In the Spring, we were doing some cleaning and I grabbed one of my ski boots in storage and it was filled with a stash and spent bird seeds from our feeder. As we started looking in boxes, an old cat cage, Christmas decorations, the other ski boot, etc we came to find that EVERYTHING was filled with spent bird seeds. It reminded me of that scene in Never Cry Wolf where the guy realizes his entire tent is overrun with mice.
Anyway, I enjoy the feeders too much so I upped my trap game in the basement...
Those are some spots, This is the first year we've seen grosbeaks of any kind at our feeders here in SE PA. Really nice to have. I'll have to give the finches at our feeders a closer look. I'm pretty sure we've had both purple and lots of house finches. I couldn't tell the females apart to save my life but I'm reasonably certain based on male spots we have both. I've been spending some time with my sparrows recently trying to pick up key identifying features. I've got the white crowned sparrows down so far and that's about it!
Last year a couple of my fir trees became a small green heron rookery, which surprised me. I heard something "croaking" one morning and finally figured out what it was. Nothing doing so far this year.
We also had a nesting pair of cooper's hawks, which literally killed my feeder traffic once the juveniles got out and about. Pretty noisy crew.