Photos from a Blog Reader
These are photos sent to me by Donna Breedlove taken in your backyard. Hope you all enjoy them.
A unique idea to keep bird water from freezing
This video shows a very unique way of keeping water for your birds from freezing over night.
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Wild Birdseed Alert
Numerous brands of wild birdseed contian seeds that can sprout and become a noxious weed! If seeds sprout beneath your own feeder, it is not that difficult to control the sprouts. However, when birds fly off and distribute seeds in their droppings, wild areas can be affected.
The prevention of noxious weeds is one more reason I prefer whole black oil sunflower seeds only for my feeders. In addition, black oil sunflower seeds attracts a wide range of birds and the majority of seeds are consumed at the feeder resulting in minimal waste. When some seeds are dropped, the ground feeders and squirrels will usually get the seed. If some seeds do sprout, a sunflower growing is easy to see and pull and is not considered noxious in the wild. When I clean up the shells under the feeder, I place the shells in my composter, worm bin or rake it in to my flower beds. The shells provide good areation and nutrition to the soil. My favorite feeder for black oil sunflower seeds is the Squirrel Buster Plus Feeder. This feeder allows the smaller birds to have their feeder and I have a different feeder for the larger birds.
Thistle or niger seed for the finches is the other whole seed I use. It is prety unlikely that the birds will transport seeds in droppings to India, Nepal or Ethiopia where thistle seed is primarily grown commercially. The Squirrel Buster Finch Bird Feeder is the perfect niger or thisle seed feeder. In the North West, you will attract American Goldfinches, House Finches, Purple Finches and Pine Siskin most of the year.
One other thing we bird lovers can do is choose foods that won’t sprout such as peanuts, sunflower hearts, and high quality suet cakes.
Just a couple more ways for each of us to be happy birders and be good stewards of nature.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Diligence does pay off!
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Female Downy Woodpecker
While in my back yard this summer, I became aware of an unusual and repetitive bird call. At the suet feeder was a female Downy Woodpecker. She was not as flighty as usual. She continued to make her intermittant call nearly oblivious to my presence. As my eyes searched the surrounding fence and trees, I saw a second Downy Woodpecker, certainly as big as the female. The second one stayed on the post of the fence. Finally, in desperation, the female took a bit of suet in her beek and flew to the one on the post. You guessed it. The female was trying to coax her fledgling baby to come to the feeder to get his own suet. It took two full days before the fledging finally started to go to the feeder himself! Even mother birds have to be consistant and diligent with their children!
