Birdfeeders

Of course, the reason we put up a birdhouse is to have birds build a nest in it during the spring season, but that doesn’t mean we need to wait until spring to put up our birdhouses. Actually, now is a wonderful time to put one up. The longer your birdhouses are part of your backyard habitat, the more likely it is that birds will accept it and use it. If there is a birdhouse up in the dead of winter, it may even become a nightly shelter for a nuthatch, chickadee, bluebird or downy woodpecker. If a bluebird discovers your bluebird house is a friendly shelter during the winter, there is a good chance it will return to nest in the spring. Check the birdhouse occasionally for signs of use, but be very sure that it is sufficiently baffled from predators or they will follow your scent, right to the birdhouse!

There are some basic things to know before putting up a birdhouse. The first thing is to identify the bird or birds you want to attract to your birdhouse. Different species require different size birdhouses with different size openings. If you aren’t sure what species you have, an all-purpose birdhouse with a hole diameter of 1.5 inches will attract most small hole-nesting birds. After picking a birdhouse, the next decision is where to put it. When we put up our first bird house, we made the mistake of putting it so far from the house that we couldn’t observe the goings and comings of birds - no fun at all. While we want them close enough to watch, we also want to be sure they are safe. Do not put a birdhouse on a tree! The biggest reason to avoid trees is the raccoon. They are smart and will figure out how to raid a birdhouse in a tree very quickly. Snakes will also find it (I know it’s creepy, but it’s true!). This is also true of fence posts. While visiting Santa Fe, we took a train ride out in the surrounding countryside where there had been an extensive project of putting up bluebird houses. They had mounted hundreds on fence posts. After discovering how easily these houses were raided, they had to go back and remount them all on poles. The easiest solution is a galvanized metal pipe. We bought an eight foot long one with a diameter under one inch. Bury it two feet in the ground so it will be solid and sturdy, even in strong winds. This gives you a six foot pole to mount the birdhouse on. This will keep it safe from predators. Be sure to place it away from trees or other jumping off places.

Plain white bread is great to add to your backyard feeding assortment. l love to stop by the discount grocery stores and pick up the cheap loaves and stick them in the freezer to use as needed. The birds that most commonly visit our yards love to find broken up pieces in our platform feeders. Robins, mockingbirds, house sparrows and grackles just love to find this treat, but there are many other baked goods that are also welcomed. What a great way to use up those stale donuts, muffins or other breads like cornbread, zucchini bread or banana bread. How about that last piece of cake that you were about to throw out? Give it to the birds! Insect eating birds like wrens, mockingbirds, thrashers and woodpeckers will quickly grab chunks to take away and hide. I know people put baked goods right on the ground and this is fine, but in our yard, we prefer putting them in the hanging platform feeders so they are not taken by “the creatures of the night”. Any dry baked goods are perfectly fine to feed to the birds, but throw away any that are moldy. The birds will just avoid them.

Most grocery stores have a small selection of mixed seed marketed for wild birds. I advise that you never buy this. It is the most expensive way to buy bird seed and most of these mixes usually use low quality seed and are full of wheat, barley and milo, all seeds that most birds will simply ignore. The best places to buy seed are the local feed store, hardware store or a specialty bird store. I love buying seed in bulk at our local feed store. They have black oil sunflower seeds, millet, cracked corn and often nyjer, all sold by the pound. Especially during the summer months I love being able to buy small quantities still at good prices. When the number of birds visiting the yard increases as winter approaches, it is easy to buy larger quantites. Our tube feeders are suddenly in constant use so we are already buying larger quantities of seed. I don’t like to have to store seed for too long, especially during hot weather when moths can become a problem fairly quickly. If you like using a seed mixture in your tube feeders or hopper feeders, mix your own using cracked corn and millet in addition to black oil sunflower seeds.

I just came across a very interesting study. Margaret Brittingham and Stanley Temple, researchers in Wisconsin, studied black-capped chickadees and compared the populations that had access to bird feeders to those who did not. Even though chickadees only got about 25% of their daily food from bird feeders, the researchers found that the birds using the feeders had a higher winter survival rate than the birds who did not have access to feeders. The most shocking discovery is that 69% of the chickedees who regularly visited backyard bird feeders survived the winter. However, only 37% of chickadees not visiting bird feeders made it through the winter! Let’s keep our bird feeders full throughout the winter and do our part to help the struggling song bird populations.

The majority of people who feed birds do it only in the winter when there is so little natural food. Although there are great entertainment rewards to year around feeding, winter feeding is certainly the most important. If you plan to begin feeding birds this winter, now is the time to start. Enticing birds to use your bird feeder now will ensure they continue to visit your bird feeder during the cold winter months. You may assume that there are only 5-10 chickadees visiting your tube feeder, but it is far more likely that there are 40 or more chickadees that stop by during the day and then head out to look for insects and spiders. Don’t worry about keeping birds from migrating by offering seed now. When it’s time to travel, the birds will go for scientists find that seed offered in our tube feeders or any other way is only a small part of a bird’s diet. In the coldest months of winter, however, the food we offer in our bird feeders can be the difference between life and death for some birds. When spring arrives, don’t discontinue feeding too early. Even though the days are warmer, nights are still cold for a while which limits the number of insects available. The best clue about when it is okay to discontinue feeding is your own bird feeders. When you realize you don’t have to fill them very often anymore, the natural world is offering food sources again. However, think twice about taking down those feeders, for spring will offer a whole new world of bird activity in your yard.

As you become familiar with what species of birds visit your yard, you can decide what kind of bird house would most likely be used. Among the birds that commonly use bird houses are bluebirds, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, woodpeckers and even some ducks and owls. Bats are quite useful night hunters of insects, so providing bat houses for them is especially useful. By providing housing in our yards, we take a step toward replacing some of the loss of natural habitats. As time goes on, there are fewer and fewer dead or hollow trees, piles of brush, etc. which are prime nesting spots. If you plan on adding a bird house or bat house to your yard, now is a good time. The local birds will see the new addition as something strange at first, but over the winter and early spring, it will begin to look like a natural part of the environment and have a better chance of being occupied in the spring.

Just as we are preparing for winter in our own homes and yards, birds are beginning the move to their winter locations. We want to attract as many of these travelers to our yards as possible for it is always interesting to see what species stop by. In the perfect feeding location there will be a large platform feeder that is near the ground and contains both sunflower seeds and mixed seed, a tube feeder or two offering sunflower seed or hearts or thistle seed, a large hopper feeder dispensing sunflower seeds and maybe a suet feeder. A nearby shelter such as bushes or trees and a water supply will add to the attraction. Of course, every yard cannot accommodate this many bird feeders and everyone doesn’t want this many, but some combination of these feeders is bound to reward you with lots of birds to watch. The birds don’t care how basic or pretty these bird feeders are, but attractive feeders, such as the coppertop bird feeders, really enhances the beauty of a garden area. If squirrels are a problem in your yard, it is important to use squirrel proof bird feeders, or these animals will regularly empty your bird feeders before the birds have a chance.

If you are paying attention to the bird activity in your yard, you have probably noticed it’s starting to change. In our yard, the orioles have mostly left, when they were plentiful a week ago. All the finches that vanished during the summer growing season are slowly finding their way back to the feeders in our yard. The squirrels in friends’ yards are quite busy, so now is a good time to be sure the squirrel proof bird feeders are in good repair, clean and ready for the fall and winter months. All of our seed feeders and suet bird feeders should now be clean and full and ready for the migration which is now beginning. Now is a wonderful time to begin recording changes, if you are not already keeping a bird watching notebook. It can be as simple as recording on the calendar when changes occur in your yard, or as detailed as keeping a daily log of observed behaviors of the birds you see. This is a great time to spot new birds visiting our squirrel proof bird feeders, hopper feeders, suet feeders, bird baths, etc. on their way south. Keep those binoculars and field guides handy to help identify new visitors!

Some people believe that seed treated with capsacin (extract of chile peppers) will keep the squirrels from eating bird seed. I have heard from people who have tried this that it works initially, but doesn’t take long for the squirrels to get use to it. I am also concerned because we don’t know how this might affect birds so I don’t recommend this tactic. Another possible solution that has been tried is live trapping the squirrels and transporting them to other areas. In most suburban areas, this is really an exercise in futility because while you may only have a few squirrels in your yard now, if you catch and take away the dominant individuals, it opens your yard to who knows how many weaker squirrels just waiting to get in! You could end up with more squirrels than you started with. Squirrel proof bird feeders are really the most viable solution. Whether a caged tube, a weight controlled model, or a battery operated spinner, a squirrel proof feeder is the best way to combat these smart animals.