At this time of year, I put away the bird seed feeders and suet feeders to concentrate on the summer visitors: namely the hummingbirds and Baltimore orioles.

The hummingbirds feed on the homemade nectar, and the orioles come for the jelly and the oranges.

Orioles might just be the most beautiful songbird of the season. Their black heads and orange bellies look almost like velvet; you want to reach out to touch. They are skittish, so that is not possible. Not that I would want to take the chance of touching a bird and getting pecked.

But from my patio door, they are incredible.

This year, though, everything is mixed up.

I hardly see the orioles at all. That’s because every time they show up, the jelly trough is empty. The catbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers have been eating some jelly.

I am OK with that.

The red-bellied woodpeckers draw the cat’s attention, and he chatters to them.

Catbirds are plentiful and loud, but I am happy to feed them.

Cardinals and titmice have come for the jelly, too.

Sometimes the birds bring food in their beaks and dunk it in the jelly to take back to the nests for babies.

But the reason the feeder is constantly empty is because of a squirrel and chipmunks, who have no boundaries.

They are gluttons, who eat up everything. They aren’t shy and don’t respond when I knock on the window. If I open the patio door, they scatter for a moment, hiding on the second deck step as if I can’t see them. Then they run right back up to the feeder.

Last week, a squirrel was chowing down on the jelly when I opened the patio door and threatened him. He looked me in the eye, bent his head defiantly and kept eating. I started out the door, a mere 5 feet away, and he picked up the jar lid containing jelly and started licking the bottom to get every last drop. Then he carried the lid like a steering wheel and sauntered away, licking as he went.

The lid never returned, but the squirrel did.

I have even witnessed woodpeckers waiting patiently for the squirrel to leave, so they could have a turn at the jelly.

In the next week, the orioles will be leaving the area, so I’ll be taking in the jelly feeders.

The jelly-junkie squirrel will have to move on, too.

Speaking of squirrelly behavior, we have two juvenile downy woodpeckers who are drinking nectar out of the hummingbird feeder.

Now woodpeckers are not as graceful as a tiny hummingbird, so they knock some of the nectar on the porch. Then the chipmunk runs over and licks the nectar off the porch.

My husband is concerned that the nectar isn’t good for the woodpecker.

So I did a quick internet search and found it’s normal for woodpeckers to drink from hummingbird feeders.

Woodpeckers have long tongues that are well-suited for using the feeders, similar to hummingbirds. Downy woodpeckers are known to frequent hummingbird feeders, and some say they’ve become more common in recent years. I have found numerous entries from people asking how to keep downy woodpeckers from drinking their nectar.

The only way I can figure would be to take away the hummingbird feeders.

I. Just. Can’t.

To me, there is nothing more special than sitting on the screen porch on a summer night and hearing the buzz and the tiny chirp of hummingbirds, seeing the flash of red and iridescent green as they zero in on the feeders.

If I stay on the porch long enough, I get to see some lightning bugs. Until then, I listen to the birds in the trees nearby.

I recently discovered the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin app, which records bird sounds and tells you what you’re hearing. I didn’t know we had vireos. I’ve yet to see them, but I hear them. There are also gnatcatcher birds and some others sharing their songs throughout the evening.

Full disclosure, the app isn’t 100 percent correct, because one day it showed me an osprey. Brodheadsville is nowhere near osprey territory. But I am learning much, anyway, thanks to the app.

Back in yard, I wish I could tell the squirrels and chipmunks they are misbehaving. The woodpeckers, well, their behavior is baffling.

If only I could train the critters to eat weeds from my yard, we’d be in good shape.