BIRDS: Readers are starting to see some the spring birds returning.

Millie Clark of Emporium called Thursday to let us know she saw her first hummingbird of the spring that morning. She got her hummingbird feeders out on Wednesday.

“This morning, it was so beautiful I went out and had my coffee,” Millie said. It was then she saw the bird.

She saw another Thursday afternoon.

Millie recalls a couple of years ago she didn’t have her feeders out as the birds started coming around, and the hummingbirds were flying by her window like they were trying to let her know.

Phyllis McNeil of Turtlepoint has some visitors of her own.

“I had a bunch of orioles out this morning at my feeder,” said Phyllis. “They drink out of my hummingbird feeders.”

She has indigo buntings, too.

Phyllis feeds the birds all year round, hanging the feeders from the rooftop so the bears don’t get into them.

She said the hummingbirds normally return around Mother’s Day, but she suspects they’ll start coming around a little earlier because of the sudden warm weather this week.

Phyllis keeps three or four hummingbird feeders out to make sure all the hummingbirds have a chance to eat.

“There are one or two that think they own the feeder,” she explained.

ETA AQUARIID: We’ll be able to glimpse the Eta Aquariids meteor shower this weekend.

While the shower is more visible in the Southern Hemisphere, we up north still have the chance to spot 10 to 30 an hour during the peak, according to AccuWeather.

The peak time to watch will be this weekend into Monday, and Accuweather recommends finding a spot of sky away from the bright moon to watch.

“No special equipment is needed for viewing the shower, but being in an area with little light pollution will help to maximize the number of meteors that can be seen,” AccuWeather stated in a press release.