Feeding the birds

[Teacher Mom]

How many gardening people love feeding the birds too? I use mostly black oil sunflower seed. I remember reading years ago that this worked to attract the most variety of birds.

We have feeders right outside the windows of the sun/computer room. We get all kinds of birds. My favorite are the orioles, hummingbirds, cardinals, bluejays, and grosebeaks. Oh and I like the song of the red winged black bird. The orioles are so cute. If I do not have their grape jelly out for them, they start singing a "hey where is my food" song to me!!!

Who else feeds the birds and what birds are you attracting??

[joy]

I do! I LOVE birds!
I get a lot of the ones you do - with some gold finches, red house finches, ummm, chickadees, and robins too. I like the robins the most - they are so chubby and they hop around like they own everything. I've kinda trained my DS to say, "ooooh chubby little robin!" when we see one. :) I didn't do that on purpose - I just didn't know I was saying it all the time. I have a big feeder on the back porch with only sunflower in it, and a suet feeder further back in the yard. When the sunflower runs out, I'll refill it with something more appropriate for spring and summer - i just don't know what yet. Something that isn't so heavy on the protein (I think - I don't know for sure).

You get a "hey where is my food" song!! I love it!! That is awesome. I would love to hear that some day. I throw bird-friendly scraps out the dining room window for them - which I know they keep an eye out for. Often, I'll hear a crow caw when I toss the stuff. I'm wondering if he is on the lookout for me and is alerting his buddies?

I could have sworn I saw a real bluebird the other day, and I didn't really believe myself, but my MIL mentioned that they are being brought back to Indiana or something like that. I felt lucky to see one.

Are you good at recognizing birds? I'm getting there.

[Jenjardin]

I love feeding the birds!!! We put out thistle seed for the goldfinches, house finches and chickadees, and the big old mourning dove somehow perches on the feeder and eat the seed that came out before. Over the winter we used the black sunflower seeds. We also put out suet cakes most of the year except for when it's really hot out and they melt, and we have a couple of wookpeckers who like that. Of course the squirrels like to raid the birdfeeders, so we put out a corn bungee thingy for them to eat from. I'd like to get some more bird feeders too. We also have a birdbath, and it's fun to watch the robins especially splash around in it. Oh, and we have a pair of cardinals, and one day last year when I was out hanging out wash on the line, the cardinals both landed on the birdbath, took a drink, "kissed" each other on the beak, and flew off in opposite directions!

We actually had a pair of bluebirds come to the bluebird house we put up this year. Last we saw, a bunch of sparrows were fighting them over it. I didn't know that sparrows could be that aggressive. I don't know who won that battle, but I hope it was the bluebirds!

We have a bird book so that we can identify birds that are new to us. I started a list the other day of all the birds we've had visit our yard this year so far:

Juncos
Nuthatch
Chicadees
Cardinals
Robins
Crows (ugh!)
Chipping Sparrows
Goldfinches
House Finch
Bluebirds!
Brown-headed Cowbird
Mourning Doves
Starlings (ugh again!)
Tufted Titmice
Downy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Baltimore Orioles - we saw these for the first time the other day! I'll have to remember the grape jelly thing.

We had a catbird and hummingbirds last year, but I haven't seen them yet this year. I keep forgetting to put out the hummingbird feeder, so hopefully I'll get that done this week.

[joy]

Oh, and we have a pair of cardinals, and one day last year when I was out hanging out wash on the line, the cardinals both landed on the birdbath, took a drink, "kissed" each other on the beak, and flew off in opposite directions!

:giggle

[canadiyank]

We do, too. I have a mixed bird seed out and then try to have something for the hummingbirds, too. I plant sunflowers but that doesn't seem to attract any birds. :shrug

[Teacher Mom]

How could I forget the bluebirds and the woodpeckers? And the finches, tufted titmouse (hehe) and doves. So many birds!!!

We have bluebird houses out back in the field. I love watching the birds, I think they are the swallows and bluebirds fly across the pond to get good bugs. We have had some mighty big woodpeckers at the feeder from time to time. I also put out suet and peanuts in the shell for the bluejays and plain peanuts for the tufted titmouse. The bluejays are hysterical. They just fly back and forth grabbing the peanuts before other bluejays get them. They crack me up. Like shoppers at a sale.

And I put the grape jelly in a peanut butter lid. The red color initially attracts them to it. But yeah, we have had these birds here every year now and when they come back in the spring, they sit in the tree singing and singing for me to get the food bowl out there for them. I love it!!!

[cheri]

I love feeding birds, but then it seems like they want to eat my vegetables, too... so I'm trying to figure out a way to enjoy the birds and get them to leave my plants alone.

[Hermana Linda]

I just put out bread scraps and crumbs. :shrug

[rosesnsnails]

We do, but we don't seem to have a large variety of birds here in town. We get finches, sparrows, black birds, doves, blue jays, and cardinals. We have lived here 12 years, and I have only seen a hummingbird twice. :( We do have vultures, over 60, that roost somewhere near. :)

I'm trying to put in more plants that will attract hummingbirds specifically, so I'll just have to wait and see. :shrug

It is actually expensive to keep up with feeding them, so I am trying to get the seeds to grow themselves. The birds will empty my 2.5 lb. feeder in a few hours.

[DeenyB]

I love feeding my little birdies!
I feed black oil sunflower seeds, and then i get a smaller bag of some premium stuff with nuts and berries and mix them together.
I also put oranges out on a feeder for the orioles.
I also have a small patch of black dirt that i keep watered and tilled for the robins.

We get a wide variety of birds.
Grosebeaks
Cardinals
Hummingbirds
Finches
Orioles
Crows (blech)
Blue Jays
My mom bought me a very nice bird book, so i am getting better at identifying them.

I woke up to the most beautiful cardinal song this morning!!

[Teacher Mom]

I just remembered too. I have been known to put out meal worms for the bluebirds.

My sister thinks I have gone crazy. But we were trying to attract the bluebirds. Putting the houses up was great, but the swallows come first to make them home. I needed to lure the beautiful blue birds in. Now that we have had them, they keep returning and we keep putting more houses along the fence as their families keep growing.

[joy]

Where do you place the jelly-in-the-lid? On the ground? In a tree? That attracts the bluebirds? (I'm taking notes... heh)
You have families of bluebirds! :heart

We do have vultures, over 60, that roost somewhere near. :)

We have vultures too. I had never seen them before - until last year a little after we moved here. I saw a tree of them the first time - it looked like a tree of winged dogs or something to me, they were so huge. I screamed. :blush I am used to them now, but - wow!! If you aren't used to them - it is a shocker.

[Teacher Mom]

I have a hanging open feeder (it is a big plastic sunflower). Probably supposed to be a bird bath, but our birds use the acre pond. I put the red lid from a peanut butter jar with jelly on the sunflower.

The meal worms I put in the same sunflower. It took two years before the bluebirds found the houses. You are supposed to plant them in an open field of land. It works good for us, cause if they were flying over, they would see open land, water and lots of birds flocking to supplies of food.

That just made me laugh typing that!! I have a bird housing development!!! I need to think of a name!!!

[Jenjardin]

Oh, we also have turkeys living nearby, buy I haven't seen them in my yard.

Yesterday, I almost bought a martin house, but I held off on it. It was a whole lot less expensive than others I've seen, by like 75%. There is this really tall pole in our yard with a platform on top that looks like it used to have one up there, so we thought that the former owners had one before.