Backyard Bird Feeding
October 25th, 2022 by georgann
| Backyard Bird Feeding |
As winter approaches many of us are entertained with thoughts of helping our backyard birds through the cold days and nights. What should be a most pleasurable hobby is often confronted with the dilemma of what and how to feed them. Attracting birds to your backyard can be successful and even more fun if a few suggestions are considered.
Offer birds a variety of food in an assortment of feeders. The best overall seed to use is black, oil sunflower. Because of its small size and thin shell, this seed is especially attractive to small birds such as Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, House Finches, Brown-headed and White-breasted Nuthatches, Carolina Wrens, and woodpeckers. Even Pine Siskins and American Goldfinches often prefer black, oil sunflower to the more expensive and messy thistle.
Sunflower seed should be used in a wide variety of hanging feeders that have small or no perches. Some feeders simply have holes cut out on their sides for birds to hang onto while reaching in for seeds. The unpredictable swinging and twisting of these hanging feeders doesn’t bother small birds or woodpeckers, but often discourages larger birds such as Common Grackles, Blue Jays, American Crows and European Starlings. These birds scare everything away from a feeder with their raucous and impolite behavior. They also prey upon small birds’ eggs and young, so you may not want to encourage them to your yard during the nesting season.
Small birds that don’t like the instability of hanging feeders can be attracted to your yard by using platform-type feeders. Platform feeding can consist of simply scattering seed on a piece of wood, a table top, railing, or flat rock. Never throw seed on the ground. Ground seed will quickly spoil and become contaminated with fungus, bacteria, and bird droppings. It also becomes a cat-trap for unwary birds.
Use red milo and white millet on your platform feeders and you will have better luck attracting Dark-eyed Juncos, Mourning Doves, White-throated Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Eastern Towhees, and a variety of sparrows. Don’t forget to throw in a handful of sunflower seeds for the Northern Cardinals, Indigo Buntings and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks.
All feeders, including platforms, should be cleaned every few weeks with hot soapy water. Clean feeders and bird baths are important for the health of birds. The water in a bird bath may need to be emptied and refilled every day especially in the summer when algae and mosquitoes thrive. By the way, dripping water into a bird bath will attract more birds than quiet water. Be sure to hang or place the bath far away from seed feeders so that hungry birds do not perch above the water while waiting their turn for food. Their droppings will quickly foul their drinking water.
If squirrels are a problem (when aren’t they?) use a large plastic, domed baffle over a small squatty hanging feeder. If the edge of the baffle comes down far enough over the feeder, squirrels will find it more trouble than its worth and go next door to your neighbor who doesn’t use a baffle. There is really no way to keep squirrels off a platform feeder unless it is perched atop a pole, situated in the yard at least 20 feet from branches or tree trunks, and successfully baffled from beneath. And even then, the smarter squirrels will get to it.
Getting hummingbirds to your yard is even easier than attracting other birds. Any hummingbird feeder will work, but you might experiment with different styles to see which works best for you. A mixture of four parts water and one part sugar is best, boil it for a minute and refrigerate what you don’t immediately use. Don’t use red food coloring, honey or any store-bought mixture. Ants, bees and yellow jackets can be prevented from annoying hummingbirds (and you) by carefully spreading a little oil around the feeder’s holes and the string or wire from which it hangs.
Leave your hummingbird feeder out all year. Although only the Ruby-throated Hummingbird nests around Atlanta, many western species have been seen regularly in the eastern U.S. during the past five winters.
So, what could be easier? Forget the dilemma of fancy, and not to mention expensive, seed mixtures. You only need three seed types: black oil sunflower, red milo and white millet. Put your sunflower in hanging feeders and milo/millet mixture on platforms. Sit back and wait. They will come.
Birding Adventures, Inc.
Georgann Schmalz
Ornithologist
www.birdingadventuresinc.com