Did you notice if your regulars came back once you started filling again in the fall? I ask because I went through almost the same thing two summers ago in central Indiana. I pulled my feeders for about three weeks in August and the chickadees and nuthatches vanished, just like yours did. But here is the part that surprised me, by mid September they were back like nothing happened, and my goldfinches actually showed up in bigger numbers than before. What worked for me was a middle ground, I stopped filling the big seed feeders but kept one small suet feeder going all summer. That way the sparrows lost interest and moved on, but my regulars still had a reason to swing through the yard. I also read that late summer is when a lot of birds are munching on bugs and wild seeds anyway, so they are not really starving without us. Honestly your heart and your gut can both win here, just do a lighter version of the break instead of a full cutoff.

Stacking will always smear anything that moves between frames, so the trick is to check the edges of your subject after the shot. A single animal has one clear outline, but if you see two overlapping shapes or doubled legs, that's two things getting mashed together. The three glowing eyes thing is a dead giveaway too, since real eyes don't multiply. Next time just brace your phone on the fence or a chair and shoot one frame instead of eight.