Like many others this weekend, my bird feeders have been hopping with action. No less than 130 red-winged blackbirds set up shop along with about 30 grackles and a handful of Rusty blackbirds and brown-headed cowbirds. Five species of sparrows enjoyed the seed including American tree and Fox sparrows. A real surprise was a meadowlark. It visited a number of times and picked up seed off the ground. Finally, the biggest surprise of all was a small group of horned larks that dropped out of the sky around 5:45 pm yesterday. They landed in the scattered seed amongst the other birds while I was attempting to clean snow off the car. My sudden rush to grab the binoculars spooked them off for the night. In total, 25 species visited the feeders yesterday. Scott Freidhof Rowan County