The Birdwatch Project

So I've taken to feeding the birds. It started in March with one mucky old birdfeeder left by the previous inhabitants and as of 27-June has grown into a 4-arm stand with squirrel baffle, a suet feeder, a tray feeder of sunflower seed, a thistle sack, and that original mucky old birdfeeder. Also have a separate hummingbird feeder closer to the house.

We have a plethora of birds and it seems I discovered a new one each week until about a month ago. So far, I have confirmed that we have flickers, downy woodpeckers, towhees, cardinals, finches, sparrows, chickadees, titmouse, thrashers, catbirds, cowbirds, grackles (yippee), nuthatches, robins, the occasional bluejay, and goldfinches. Our newest visitor is a wren...can't tell if there's more than one.

Pretty much all of them like the tube feeder.
Suet - downy woodpecker, grackles (until I get a pellet rifle), wrens, thrashers
Sunflower - grackles (seriously, what won't they eat?), cardinals, finches, sparrows, wrens
Thistle - finches and goldfinches

The thistle sack is kind of annoying because one of us has to go out there about twice a day and twist it to keep the seed exposed or the birds either can't or won't eat from it. It's worth it when we get a goldfinch though because they're magnificent birds.

My suet cake is almost gone (it's peanut...a big hit with the woodpeckers). May try fruit next time (oranges or something) to see if I can get the catbird to come to the feeder and see what else it may attract. We're also thinking of replacing the sunflower seed in the tray feeder with worms or grubs in the fall to see if we can get a Bluebird. We've seen one around, but not in our yard. My only fear with using "live" feed is that our plentiful population of robins may devour it before the bluebird even thinks of coming to the yard. We'll see.

I do a pretty good job of keeping the hummingbird feeder clean and fresh. I had 1 hummingbird from May until about 2 weeks ago and haven't seen him/her since. Never got a good enough look to determine if it was male or female. One website I referenced noted that the females sometimes stop feeding at nectar sources in late June through July because they have hatchlings and spend all of their time catching insects to feed to their young. Don't know how accurate this is, but will keep the feeder up for him/her in case she/he comes back.

Future posts will include the relaying of how we got from one feeder in a tree to my current obsession/monstrosity in the backyard. "Squirrels are the secret servants of the dark master" (thanks, Bridge to Terabithia!)

Dale