It's time to clean your bird feeders for the winter feeding season. Summer moisture can combine with seed fragments to create a build-up of gunk on the bottom and along the seams of feeders. This gunk can harbor diseases. For the sake of the birds that visit your yard, give your feeders a good cleaning. Bring the feeders inside, scrape out the gunk, wash them well and disinfect them in a solution of one part water to nine parts bleach. Rinse them well and make sure they're dry before you refill them with fresh seed.

On the 100 anniversary of his birth, a new biography celebrates the life of bird-watching genius Roger Tory Peterson.

Of course, Peterson hasn't exactly been ignored over the years. But "Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson," by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal (Lyons Press, $29.95) offers new insight into his life. The book manages to be entertaining as well as informative, drawing on many interviews with relatives, friends and associates. And it serves as a sort of history of birding -- from the moment that Peterson's first guidebook changed the pastime forever.

JIM WILLIAMS