We were glad to see them and glad to accommodate them on their migratory route back to northern Canada from their wintertime haven south of the border, but as much pleasure as it gave us to watch them congregate in our front garden, perching in the trees, swooping down in a mass flight of a hundred or so at a time, making the walkway, thick with their numbers appear as though it was a living, moving, hopping, shifting hallucination, we're equally glad to see them depart.

They were here for three weeks at the very least. Their very numbers intimidating to our local birds, who gave us wide berth for the period when the redpolls flocked to our feeding stations; they monopolized the stations in overwhelming numbers. We felt responsible to satisfy their needs and bought many more bags of blackoiled sunflower seeds than we normally would, to do so.

And so birds that normally arrive at the feeding stations failed to; no doubt they found other places to satisfy their hunger. We had, in any event, kept them going throughout the long, cold and snowy months of winter.

But now that the redpolls have finally departed, the doves and the juncos, the chickadees and the nuthatches, goldfinches and the cardinals and the song sparrows have returned. And they've been joined by other migrants like purple finches and the occasional woodpecker and crows. Of them all, it seems to us that the crows are the most alert and flighty.

But they're back and so are the squirrels in all their quarrelsome numbers, red, black, grey, and the delightful little chipmunks that we so admire. Not to mention a juvenile raccoon that also makes its way to the feeding platform during daylight hours, unwilling to confine itself to nighttime visits to our backyard composter.