What's at your birdfeeder?

“Thanks Mr...I'm going to try and practice some today. If I'm not successful I put up a bird album yesterday.”

“I made a suet cake last night and put a piece out for the birds today - I hope they like it!

So far, we've had Blue Jays, Cardinals (male and female), Starlings, chickadees, eastern kingbirds, red winged black birds, and chipping sparrows.”

“

and

”

“I saw a Tufted Titmouse yesterday.”

“I picked up two owl feathers taking Ab to the bus stop a few minutes ago. The great horned owl who nests in the pine across the street must be back.”

“Oregon Junko and some Bushtits. And you can really tell it's spring, the birdies have spring fever!”

“cool! there's an owl in our neighborhood as well...
I forgot to add that there were 3 or 4 downy woodpeckers on one of the trees the other day as well. Last fall a bunch of Pileated woodpeckers stopped on the oak tree out front for a minute.

I found a turkey beard in the pasture last weekend...”

“I'm having trouble deciding what this flock of new birds are that have been at the feeder. I think they are stripped sparrows but I'm not sure.”

“That suet cake sounds great. I don't know why they wouldn't like it. You'll have every bird in the area over at you feeder.”

“And the dang squirrels will try and abscond with it too!”

“One good thing about having skunks, I don't have many other pesky rodents. :)
Plus my sinuses get a good cleaning out every now and then...”

“LOL... I hate the skunks that come around in the summer. They'll spray at something at night and you can't even open the windows it's so strong. Not good on a hot and humid night.”

“our skunks are pretty mellow. if i stomp my feet and tell them to go away, they do. once i saw the maintenance guy pull a water cover off and a HUGE skunk climbed out and slowly ambled away. didn't skunk any of us even though we had obviously disturbed his daytime nap.”

“The skunks come in the yard at night and dig holes in it looking for grubs. They must find them because they keep coming back. Last year, I saw one that had very little black coloring and was almost all white. I don't know if it was an albino skunk.”

“Skunks get pattern variations like that. My brother hit what he thought was a white dog, until he got out and smelled that it was an all white skunk, with just a black patch on the chest.”

“I didn't know what it was because that was the first time I saw a skunk all white. At first I thought it was maybe a cat.
last edited: 4/06/07 7:29:26 AM”

“I made a suet cake last night and put a piece out for the birds today - I hope they like it!
twigeater
11:03:25 AM
4/05/07

what and how did you make it?????”

“I searched web sites and even tried looking up nutrition (some interesting debates out there) and ended up with this...

1 part suet
1 part crunchy peanut butter
1 part flour
3 parts corn meal
Bird seed
Black oil sunflower seeds

Sesame seeds
Wheat berries
Wheat germ

Melt the suet (the recipe said it’s best if you melt it twice, but I didn’t have the patience) take it off the heat and add the peanut butter. When that’s all melted together, add the corn meal and flour, then the bird seeds, then whatever goodies you have on hand…I would have added raisins if I’d had them…

Pour it into a pan and refrigerate. Cut it up whatever size you want.

So far, the chipping sparrows love it!”

“Thanks!!!!.....I'm gonna give it a try!!!!”

“one thing I forgot was oats...”

“can it stand hot weather???”

“I'm not sure - I did find a recipe for "all season" suet and the only difference was lard instead of suet. Doesn't go rancid I guess...but then I read on some sites that birds don't need suet when it warms up. I think the temp cut off was 70 degrees.”

““And the dang squirrels will try and abscond with it too!”

The aquirrels DID abscond with mine! I had it hanging on a nail on the tree, next to the feeder and they drug it out into the woods.”

“It's 50 degrees out and there's a male cardinal walking on the mesh covering my koi bin, so he can get a bath and a drink. THe fish weren't fed today (too cold, the food rots in their guts)so the bird's got a bumpy ride going on, getting nudged from below from fish much larger than him.”

“I've been having so much fun watching the birds during this snow storm. Besides our regular Chickadees and Nuthatches, we've added Goldfinches, Purple Finches, Juncos, Pine Siskins, American Tree Swallows, and on Sunday morning, we had a Bald Eagle fly over the pond behind the house.

The Downy and Hairys are highly active and the Pileated has been making a few more appearances at the back deck.

I could sit in my chair and watch the birds for hours every single day. I'm really enjoying this new hobby.”

“it is addicting!”

“Last Saturday I spotted a female blue bird and today....I saw a male and female goldfinch!!! I'm so excited...my flock is increasing.”

“i put new bird seed in my feeder and this guy showed up. i never saw him before. i am almost sure this is what he looed like. i knew he was part of the cardinal family. is it possible?

”

“female cardinal”

“really? wow i wonder why i never noticed her before. i see the red ones (i guess males) all the time. very cool. thank you :)”

“that looks like the Adirondack red x bird to me

i had some golden fences on mine yesterday”

“red X

LOL what the heck is that? james bond bird?”

“oops, fences=finches”

“I seem to attract raptors. I wish I could've found the dang camera in time. I have a few small 20 inch wide bins on the back porch for aquatic plants. There was a large reddish hawk flopping around in with the irises, getting a bath. It splashed water all over the place. I know I've got some hawks nesting relatively close by, but I think this was a different type. It was bigger looking and darker. Did Laurel see it? Nope, she was in the bathroom trying to figure out what to do because she ran out of toilet paper. Ah well.
She found another roll and considering all the birds my pond attracted in Florida this bird may come back.”

“interesting morning at the feeder. blue jays and cardinals.
i might look into trying different seeds.”

“I have the same thing treebait - I see a Cooper's Hawk swooping in a couple of times a week trying to get one of the small birds at the feeder.”

“I once got a sample of freeze dried caterpillars from Gardens Alive. The bluejays went ape-s--t for them.”

“i love how the house finches come in all shades of red, from pale orangey to the most brilliant reds, to the very deepest reds. today i got to watch a baby follow his mommy (or was it daddy?) around begging to be fed. the parent looked annoyed.”

“I don't have a feeder, but for the hummingbirds. There are so many different kinds of birds coming and going that I need to get a book....and a feeder.”

“I've been watching Mr and Mrs cardinal feed eachother for the past couple of weeks. It's pretty sweet.
Also have an evening grosbeak hanging around the feeders. Prolly migrating up north.
Pamela, our house finches are purpleish here. Mid summer the males get almsot magenta.”

“I saw some blue jays doing that! that is cool.”

“THe cardinals feeding each other is sweet? I watched a male cardinal regularly capture anoles (little green lizards,)bash them to death on a rock, my front step or whatever was handy, and feed that to his chicks. They don't seem to be quite so carnivorous up here.”

“They just get seeds for eachother. No lizards around to massacre.”

“I saw a titmouse with a real nice rack.”

“tufted? (rack or titmouse, your choice)”

“i have yet to see a purple finch, although this area is within their range.”

“We have some ultra-annoying bird waking us up at 4 AM every day! We call it the "hammer and chisel" bird because it sounds like the sound when someone is using a hammer and chisel on rock. It's just a medium sized gray bird. If only I owned a flame thrower!!!!”

“mocking bird?”

“I made a different bird seed cake and the birds haven't touched it.

I was reading about the difference between using suet, lard, or shortening...some said they used shortening that they'd fried donuts, etc in...I did that, and I've yet to have a bird touch it...we'll see...”