Jamie Biancalana, RealtySouth

09/26/2026

09/23/2026

09/23/2026

Congratulations!

Congratulations to these outstanding 2026 REALTOR® of the Year nominees! 🎉 These exceptional REALTORS® exemplify professionalism, leadership, and dedication to the industry and their communities. Join us at Annual Conference as we celebrate their achievements and reveal this year's winner.👏 Visit our website to register! https://alrealtors.co/4ixQZNI

09/23/2026

Where do you think the bluebirds go? Most people assume south. Cornell Lab's All About Birds has eastern bluebirds as partial migrants: many northern birds do move, and plenty of mid-latitude and southern birds never leave the county they were raised in. The flock on your fence line in October may be the same birds you watched raise a brood in June.

What changes is the menu. Through the fall the diet swings from insects to fruit, and the birds go where the berries are. North Carolina's wildlife agency lists sumac, holly, dogwood and juniper among them. That is the argument for leaving the berried shrubs alone this month, and for cleaning last season's nest out of the box now, while nothing is living in it.

Then the box stops being a nursery. All About Birds notes that nest boxes are used year round for roosting, often by several birds at once. On the coldest nights of January they pile into one cavity and share the heat. The box you left standing is a bunkhouse.

One honest warning. House sparrows kill bluebirds inside boxes, so a sparrow-resistant box, or one you actually monitor, is the price of putting it up. Western and mountain bluebirds do the same things in their own ranges.

The month-by-month box plan is in the comments. 🐦

09/21/2026

Leaving a hummingbird feeder up in fall doesn't keep them from migrating. What moves them south is day length, not food supply. No feeder has ever talked a hummingbird out of leaving.

In late August the feeder is fuel. She's putting on weight for a journey that was already decided by the shortening days. Taking it down early removes a filling station from a route she was already flying.

The advice from ornithologists is the opposite of the folklore: keep feeders up for several weeks after the last hummingbird you see, in case a late migrant comes through needing energy.

🐾 The sugar-water protocol:

- One part sugar to four parts water. Boil the water, dissolve the sugar, cool before filling.
- No red dye. Unnecessary and possibly harmful.
- Never honey. It ferments quickly.
- Scrub and refill every other day in heat, twice a week minimum.

One detail most people don't know: hummingbirds live only in the Americas. No one in Europe, Africa, Asia, or Australia has ever hung a feeder and had one show up.

Leave it up. Let the late one find it 🐾

09/20/2026

Happy Wife Appreciation Day! 💐 Today is all about celebrating the love, support, and dedication of wives everywhere. Tag yours in the comments to let her know just how much she means to you! ❤️