national bird feeding month

the birds dont really need our help to find food this time of the year, but attracting birds to your yard can make the doldrums of winter seem so much brighter! so, dutifully, i cleaned and filled my freeze-less bird bath and filled the feeders around the yard last week in honor of national bird feeding month...but no one came: it has been so cold here in the temperate mid-atlantic, that even the birds are staying indoors! the bird feeder stayed full-even the squirrels werent interested-until sunday when we got a spring preview with temperatures in the mid-40's: then i saw me some birds! i saw six swans on the potomac...an eagle sitting in her (?) nest...titmice and chickadees...a flock of blue birds hanging with a bunch of waxwings...several thousand cackling grackles...a red shouldered hawk...a coopers hawk...four or five different varieties of woodpecker-types...and a white breasted nuthatch.  a ring necked kingfisher perched above my head on a dog walk by rock creek. 
now there are cardinals, robins and of course, starlings.