The birds that were depending on my feeders have had to branch out this spring. I've been gone so much the feeders are empty as often as they are full, mostly because I haven't been home, but also because I keep running out of seed and have trouble finding time to get to somewhere to buy the 40lb bags, and the little 5-10lb. bags in the grocery are outlandishly expensive.
I added a new feeder with a bigger hopper a couple of months ago that I thought would extend things for at least 4 days, but it only extended the "fill" schedule from daily to every other day.
This is hard to say, gulp, but I have a new appreciation of starlings. Some one in the UK, on this thread or another, commented on watching the amazing, wheeling flight of starling flocks driving home from work a month or so ago. There are large flocks of starlings that live in my mother's neighborhood. The last several evenings I have watched the airshow they put on in preparation for roosting for the night, and it is a wonder to behold.
They may be greedy, nasty pigs of birds at feeders and when one has to park under Bradford Pears in winter, but watching them collectively in those nightly patterns is pretty awesome.