Food for Thought

When I first started setting out bird feeders, years ago, I didn't have the knowledge or the ability to be picky. We had a small house on less than a half-acre of land in a suburban setting. I just wanted to view some birds out the kitchen window, as did my oldest, M. A large tube-style seed feeder promptly went up, with a suet feeder nearby, and I did get some birds: cardinals mostly, some bluejays, and a house sparrow or two. I was thrilled to have these birds come to our house to eat.

J, however, was less than thrilled, especially since the feeders were hung over the deck. After a few months of scraping bird droppings -- and of reminding M to refill the feeders -- our birding was relegated to the back seat.

Now that we are out in a rural zone, with the closest neighbor acres away, J has allowed me to indulge in my birding hobby to my heart's content. I'm not really sure why J has humored me with this. We still get birdie poop on the deck, though now only on the rails and outer edges rather than smack in the middle of the floor. J's expanse of endless green lawn has been dotted and disrupted with close to a dozen birding poles. Perhaps it's because he sees the pleasure watching and feeding our wild birds brings me. Perhaps it's because we don't get TV reception. Whatever the reason, I've been enjoying getting to know the feathered denizens of Forest's Edge.

My first step in getting to know the local birds was learning which feeders to get to attract them. I quicly discovered that the swooping, playful barn swallows, with their dramatically forked tails and their squeaky calls, were not going to come to any feeder of mine, since they were insectivores. Having a thing about bugs, the thought of filling a feeder with dead bugs -- or worse, live ones -- did not appeal to me at all. The barn swallows love wasps, however, so they were very welcome here.

The finches were next. My first finch feeder was a "finch sock" -- a tube of mesh netting sewn closed on one side and opened and closed via drawstring on the other. The finch sock gets filled with nyjer thistle seed (a skinny black seed that finches adore along the lines of cats and catnip), then hung on a hook. Boy, did the goldfinches love that sock! I bought a second sock for a hanger in the front yard, and was treated daily to images of goldfinches completely covering every inch of the sock, sometimes chasing other goldfinches away for a turn at the thistle.

Goldfinches creeping all over socks = very dirty socks. After washing them repeatedly over a two-week period, I decided to find a better alternative. The Backyard Bird Company offered several alternatives, including a long plastic tube with a perching spiral that wrapped around it, a jumbo, metal-mesh tube similar to the sock except with top and bottom saucers, and something called the Finch Feast: three slender tubes, interconnected via a half-dozen copper perching rods, hung by the center pole. The image showed a flock of happy goldfinches, each with its own perch, eating nyjer seed in good company. I quickly ordered the Finch Feast and was not disappointed. Not only did goldfinches come eat the seed I set out, but house finches as well and, recently, a chipping sparrow. There were days that more than a dozen finches feasted on that feeder. I still think it was a great buy -- the problem now is dissuading the female blackbirds from using it, as they're larger than what the feeder is meant for and because they frighten away the finches. Darned blackbirds! It's my fault, actually, that they now come to the finch feeder. A week or so ago, when I ran out of thistle seed, I tried out a blend called "Finch Treat" that claimed it was every finch's favorite: a blend of chipped sunflower seed and thistle. I'm guessing they meant Blackbird Treat, because the finches wouldn't even touch it, staying near the bottom of the tubes were the remaining thistle seed had pooled, while the blackbirds happily gathered to eat the Blackbird Treat. I finally dumped it out and restocked it with just thistle seed, but the blackbirds are still there. I'm hoping the goldfinches will gang up and scare them away, but right now the goldfinches are preoccupied with nesting, darned goldfinches.

My second purchase was an antiqued copper tube feeder, with removable top and bottom for easy cleaning and portals that could reverse depending on the kind of seed I wished to offer. Since I already had a thistle feeder (two, actually, as I eventually also ordered that mega sized metal feeder for the front), I chose to leave it as a wide portal for other seed mixes. Talk about trial and error! I started out with something that called itself songbird mix. All I got were house sparrows. After a few attempts, I set the songbird mix aside to use as bait for the repeating trap. I then moved onto a regional summer bird mix guaranteed to reduce the number of cowbirds, grackles, and blackbirds. The finches actually ate the mix... whenever they could get past the grackles and cowbirds. Next, I tried a fruit-nut-seed mix, which brought an even number of finches, grackles, cowbirds, and sparrows. I finally read somewhere that birds that enjoy sunflower seed will eat safflower seed, which has a bitter taste disliked by cowbirds and company. I gave it a try, and that was one of the better birding moves I've made. The house finches were back in droves, along with the grosbeaks and that grey finch-like bird I still haven't identified. I've seen a male blackbird and a couple of female blackbirds on the safflower feeder, but they've been infrequent visitors and hopefully it will stay that way.

Next came the hummingbird feeders. My first lesson and the most important one I'll share is never buy a hummingbird feeder that does not have an ant guard. That's a little moat that you fill with water. The theory and fact of this is that the ants, drawn by the nectar, will climb down the hanging pole and encounter the moat they need to cross in order to get to the nectar. When they cross, they drawn. Hummingbirds don't seem to like drowned ants as snacks, however, so it's crucial to clean a hummingbird feeder every three to four days, not only to dislodge any insects but also to refresh the feeder -- nectar can ferment, and nobody wants to watch a drunken hummingbird.

There are a variety of hummingbird feeders out in the market, many of them elaborate glass bottles in a variety of reds. Red apparently attracts hummingbirds, although I have never had difficulty with my purple or clear feeders. I gave the bottle type a try, a one-day trial as it turned out because the wind would sway the feeder, causing the nectar to shake out through the feeding portals and sprinkle all over the walkway and ground beneath the bottle feeder. Instant ant colony. The bottle feeder went back the next day. Very pretty -- I suppose I could use them as garden art, but definitely not as feeders.

The best hummingbird feeder I have is my window-mounted one. While I get an equal number of hummingbirds at all four feeders, since the window-mounted one is right beside my work area, I get to enjoy the hummers at about a foot's distance. I'm sure I'll go into withdrawal when my permanent office is set up.

The fruit feeder followed the hummingbird feeder. I had read that many birds love fresh fruit, including orioles and bluebirds. Even woodpeckers -- who inhabit our front forest but who have yet to make an appearance -- love fruit. There are many types of fruit feeders: ones shaped like the fruit being offered, ones that are simply bent skewers, some that are elaborate wood and plastic contraptions. I chose the bent-skewer model and promptly sacrificed an apple and two oranges to it. The skewer is now in my birding storage pile, to be given a shot during winter before being disinfected and offered up at the school flea market.

I absolutely love my oriole feeder, also a Backyard Bird Company purchase although available at both WBU and Duncraft. Holding nectar, fruit, and jelly, it's a banquet for orioles. I'm still toying with buying the jelly-jar feeder, which is a bright-orange collar that hold a 10-ounce jelly jar and comes with perch and hook. That way, when I'm away for any reason, the orioles will still be able to have their jelly treat.

Suet cages also were tried and put away until the winter. From my previous suburban birding experience, I knew that suet feeders were more for winter, when food is scarce and the suet provides birds with much-needed calories. WBU carries no-melt suet cakes in a variety of flavors, for those birders who wish to put out summer suet for chickadees and woodpeckers. This was my chance to bring the woodpeckers out of the front forest, I chortled to myself, hanging out a peanut-butter-and-jelly suet cake near the front. The woodpeckers wouldn't touch it. I finally crumbled it up for the mourning doves out in the back. I tried a berry-filled suet cake next, with no takers. I finally wrapped the cake in plastic and put it away for cooler weather, using the cage instead to offer the birds lint and cotton nesting material. Now that I've sighted chickadees, I've hung the berry suet cake out again out front. Hopefully, the chickadees will be happy and stay around.

When winter comes, I'm investing in a suet cage with built-in tail prop, since woodpeckers apparently like to prop their tails while they eat. Got to see those woodpeckers!

My least successful -- or most successful, depending on your point of view -- feeder has been my ground feeder. A simple tray with elevated rims that fits over a stake, it can be pole mounted to become a platform feeder or can hang as a tray feeder. Knowing that there are birds, such as the towhee, who are ground feeders, I chose to use it as a ground feeder, positioning it just outside the den window near my copper-topped oil sunflower seed feeder and, yes, my third thistle feeder. My ground feeder was not successful because I never saw one towhee and only viewed a bluejay twice and a cardinal perhaps three times. It was the most successful because it brought dozens of cowbirds, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, and a few crows, not to mention house sparrows. If I'd wanted to attract the countryside's most unwelcome birds, I'd succeeded magnificently.

Last night, I pulled the ground feeder out after creating a list of the ground-feeding birds that would come for winter: four varieties of true sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, plus the jays and cardinals. I'll put it out again in October, once the maurauding blackbird bunch have migrated.

Research told me that bluebirds could be trained to come to a feeder filled with, ugh, mealworms. From the Backyard Bird Company, I purchased a bluebird feeder made of recycled materials, with plexiglass viewing portals and entry holes so that no larger birds could bother the bluebirds as they dined. The feeder was blue, just like the bluebirds (again with the color thing!). I bought some roasted mealworms and I hung the feeder on a deck hanger. Sean came that very afternoon, perched on the feeder, pooped on it, and left.

And that was as close to getting used as that feeder came. I tried hanging it from a shepherd's crook that I bought specifically to keep the feeder near the bluebirds' nesting area, and nothing, although something got to it because I found the feeder and hook on the ground the next day. I decided to try a blue Tupperware lid, using packing tape to attach it to the beam of the swingset where the bluebird nest was. In addition to roasted mealworms I tried vacuum-packed mealworms (the next best thing to live ones!). It only took them two days to find and frequent the lid. Three days ago, I moved the lid from the swingset beam to the double shepherd's crook pole I bought, attaching it with hanging hooks, and hanging the bluebird feeder from the second hook. My hope was that they'd see the lid they were used to feeding from, then see the bluebird feeder stocked with even more mealworms, and start going to it. Nope! All the mealworms were gone from the lid, but the feeder remained untouched. I soon discovered that Sean was purposely flying into the lid to knock the mealworms off the lid and onto the ground, where he and Bluette swooped on them and brought them back to their babies. Smart birds.

Yesterday, a trip to WBU netted me a Dinner Bell: a clear, sturdy circular feeder tray with perching rim and a clear bell-shaped canopy. The canopy protected the birds (and the mealworms) from inclement weather, and it could be lowered to keep out larger birds. I hung this out next to the Tupperware lid and, success! Bluette repeatedly helped herself to the feeder, while Sean perched nearby or took a couple of swings at the Tupperware lid.

The lid is coming down this afternoon. New to the deck feeders, however, is my Bark Butter Feeder: a wooden slab with holes drilled into it in which I stuff blobs of Bark Butter, a peanut-butter like mixture for birds (not for human consumption, unless you're really starving, I suppose). There's a perch on each side, and a roof to shelter the Bark Butter. This morning, I found the feeder empty and promptly filled it, wondering who'd eaten there. I'll be watching more closely this afternoon, but at least it has joined the ranks of the permanent feeders, rather than those possibly doomed for the flea market.