Birdfeeders

There seems to be constant conflict about whether cats should be kept indoors or allowed to roam freely. The believers of keeping cats indoors (including me) feel the cats are healthier and safer and will live a longer life. On the other side, people believe cats were meant to have a free roaming life. Unfortunately, roaming cats are responsible for killing millions of birds, especially grassland birds. A good friend of mine has found the perfect solution to keeping her indoor cat happy and entertained. She has both a tube feeder and a hummingbird feeder hung right outside a window. It didn’t take birds long at all to get use to the cat right on the other side of the window and the cat enjoys hours of bird watching! Not only are birds happily feeding at the tube feeder and hummingbird feeder, there is now a hummingbird nest in the bush near the window, spotted by the cat before my friend saw it. Birds, cat and humans are all winners here.

Downy Woodpeckers are known to be among the most widespread species at suet bird feeders in North America. The suet is quite similar to their favorite natural food which is beetle larvae. They do eat a wide variety of other animal and vegetable foods, so don’t be surprised to see them visit a tube feeder for a sunflower seed or chip of cracked corn. During the winter, the Downy Woodpeckers may visit your suet bird feeders in pairs or as individuals. However, in the spring, they will be visiting almost always in pairs. Downey Woodpeckers are so common in North America that they visit over 90% of suet bird feeders in some areas and visit feeders all year long in many areas, particularly in the eastern half of the U.S.

The Mourning Dove is one of the most common birds to be seen visiting our platform feeders. They are ground feeders that are commonly seen in rural, suburban and urban areas throughout most of the United States. They have managed to discover our hanging platform feeder and, with a little practice, can even balance on it two at a time! Unfortunately, more Mourning Doves are shot in the U.S. than all other migrating gamebirds combined. Non-hunting mortality is also quite high every winter, so it is thought that half of the Mourning Dove population dies each year. During the hot months, they require four times as much water as in winter, so our platform feeders and bird baths are important to this species.

Squirrels can certainly be entertaining, so if you want to draw them into your yard, squirrel feeders are the perfect solution. In the United States, backyards are frequently visited by gray, brown, fox and red squirrels. Adults normally live alone. In the summer, squirrels will most likely visit the squirrel feeders 2-3 hours after sunrise and again 2 hours before sunset. If attracting squirrels to a yard is the goal, be sure to have squirrel feeders up by early spring. This is when squirrels are the most active for it is mating season. The males will chase the females and also chase other possible suitors away. Offering full squirrel feeders will draw much of this activity right to the yard for entertainment for everyone in the house. Of course, these squirrel feeders will also cause squirrels to much less interested in any nearby bird feeders.

The best reason to try to keep squirrels out of bird feeders is that they can eat their weight in seed in less than a week! They can jump 6 feet up and at least 8-10 feet straight across and can run as fast as 20 mph. A squirrel’s front teeth are designed for gnawing and eating and actually grow 6 inches per year and are worn down by activity. This is why the best squirrel proof bird feeders have sturdy construction and are usually made of metal. They offer a variety of methods to foil a squirrel’s attempt to get to the bird seed. Some have cages that only small birds can get through and some of the squirrel proof bird feeders are designed to be entertaining for us as well. Watching a bird feeder spin until the squirrel flies off always brings a smile to watching faces!

I have heard it suggested that mixing capsaicin, the chemical that makes hot peppers “hot”, in with bird seed will discourage squirrels from raiding bird feeders. I really don’t like introducing anything like this to our feeders, especially since there are other solutions. Certainly there are many types of squirrel proof bird feeders, but another simple approach is to put up a squirrel feeder in an area away from the bird feeding station. Squirrels actually prefer corn and nuts to bird seed and these are less expensive than bird seed. Hang a squirrel feeder on the side of a tree, deck or post, load up with corn and it won’t take the squirrels long to find it and they will most likely leave the bird feeders alone.

There is no evidence that birds become dependent on bird feeders. Birds are opportunistic feeders, so if bird feeders are an easy available source of food, they will certainly take advantage of them. However, they are also freely roaming around their natural environment for food as well. In spite of the large number of bird feeders available, birds continue to migrate as they should. However, it seems that feeders have contributed to recent northward expansion of the range of some resident species like the Northern Cardinal and Tufted Titmouse. These species can survive the cold, but before bird feeders were so common, they must not have been able to find enough natural food in these areas.

The weather is finally warm and now we find that bird seed is sprouting under the hanging tube bird feeders. Not to worry! There are a couple of solutions. The easiest is to switch to sunflower chips instead of sunflower seeds. The chips are a little more expensive but will definitely not spout. If you want to continue filling your tube bird feeders as always, simply add a Seed Hoop to the tube feeder which will catch 90% of the dropped seed.

We think of hummingbirds as strictly nectar feeders, but this isn’t true. At least 25% of a hummingbird’s diet is made up of spiders and small insects. Of course they are attracted to red hummingbird feeders and red blossoms, but the insects in your yard are also an attraction. Also, hummingbirds use spider webs as nest building material. Especially at this time of the year, please don’t use those broad spectrum pesticides that kill all the insects and spiders in your yard. Let the hummingbirds do the job for you! You will be rewarded with many more hummers visiting your hummingbird feeders.

The Orioles are very busy now! They are coming to our Oriole bird feeders quite often and usually in pairs. With nest building and chicks to raise, the best way to keep them coming to your yard is to offer other favorites in addition to nectar. As well as nectar, Orioles love oranges and grape jelly (I wonder who discovered that they love grape jelly?). There are now many Oriole bird feeders on the market that have spikes for orange halves and cups to put the jelly in. If you also have woodpeckers, try putting an apple half on one of the spikes and see if your woodpeckers find it.