Using Bird Feeders To Attract Birds In Your Backyard

There are several factors to consider after you've decided to feed birds in your backyard. 

Where do you want to watch your birds? From a kitchen window ... a sliding glass door opening onto a deck ... a second-story window? 

Pick a location that is easy to get to. When the weather is bad and birds are most vulnerable, you may be reluctant to fill a feeder that is not in a convenient spot near a door or an accessible window. Also, pick a site where discarded seed shells and bird droppings won't be a cleanup problem.

Put your feeder where the squirrels can't reach. Squirrels become a problem when they take over a bird feeder, scaring the birds away and tossing seeds all over. Squirrels have been known to chew right through plastic and wooden feeders.

If you've seen squirrels in your neighborhood, it is safe to assume they will visit your feeder. Think long and hard before you hang anything from a tree limb. Squirrels are incredibly agile, and any feeder hanging from a tree is likely to become a squirrel feeder.

In the long run, a squirrel-proof feeder or any feeder on a pole with a baffle is the least aggravating solution. The most effective squirrel-proof feeder is the pole-mounted metal "house" type.

What kind of bird food should you use?  The hands-down favorite bird seed is sunflower. It attracts cardinals, woodpeckers, blue jays, goldfinches, purple finches, chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches.  Get the black sunflower seeds, sometimes called oil seeds. Birds prefer them to the grey-and-white-striped sunflower seeds sold off the candy rack for people, because they're higher in oil content. They are softer shelled, hence easier to crack open. They're also cheaper than the grey-and-white ones.

Another essential bird seed is niger. Goldfinches adore niger.  Niger is a black seed, so tiny and light you can blow away a handful with a gentle breath.  Niger is also expensive, over a dollar a pound, so you won't want to waste it. Buy a hanging tube with tiny holes, designed especially for niger, and hang it where you can see it from your best viewing window. Up close to the house, even under the eaves, is fine. Goldfinches will become very tame and won't mind you standing two feet away from them, on the other side of the window, while they eat.

Another favorite seeds for birds is safflower, a white seed, slightly smaller than a black sunflower seed. Squirrels don't like it. Neither do grackles, blue jays, or starlings. Safflower seeds are extremely bitter. Cardinals, titmice, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers munch it like candy, though, so keep a good supply available on the platform feeder. The squirrels won't bother to climb up there as well.

White millet is another seed that attracts birds.  It is even cheaper than sunflower seed.  Scatter it on the ground for sparrows, juncos, and mourning doves. 
You can buy these seeds at feed stores, nurseries, supermarkets, and some hardware stores. It's a good idea to buy everything except the costly niger in 50-pound bags and store them in the garage in mouse-proof metal trash cans.
    

Don't bother with bags of mixed birdseed. These mixes usually contain a lot of filler, such as red millet. Most birds won't eat it. They rummage through the seeds in the feeder and kick the red millet onto the ground, where at best it lies until it rots and turns into pretty decent fertilizer for the grass. Mixed birdseed is not a bargain. Buy the seeds you know your birds want.

When starting up a feeding program, be patient. It may take as long as several weeks before the birds discover your feeders. While you wait, be sure to keep the feeders filled. Eventually, the birds will come.

Sometimes conscientious people are concerned about whether feeding the birds will harm the birds. Will the birds become dependent on the handouts? And it's often advised that one should only start feeding birds if certain that the feeding can continue uninterrupted.

However, the evidence indicates that feeding is not likely to be bad for birds. They don't settle in and dine at just one place. Goldfinches, for example, follow a circuit each day, visiting a number of feeders and wild food patches, as we know from studies of banded birds that can be identified individually.

With many households feeding birds, it's unlikely that a bird will starve because one feeder goes empty. All the same, birds that come into your yard at dusk are hungry, and it is bad manners to disappoint guests!  Make sure they have enough to dine on at your pleasure!

    Birds like to feed on hanging suet molds.  You can buy these in many different place, but this can be especially fun if you can make them yourself.  They're so easy, even the children can help!  Make a simple bird feeder by attaching a short length of string to a pine cone, covering the pine cone with a suet, lard, or vegetable shortening mixture (see below), and rolling it in seeds, and then suspending it from a tree branch. 

Fatty mixture: Mix 1/2 cup suet, lard, or vegetable shortening with 2 1/2 cups cornmeal or uncooked oats until well blended.

Optional: add dried fruit (chopped up), chopped nuts, and/or 1/4 cup finely chopped leftover meat (only in cold weather).

    Hummingbirds drink nectar which is also easy to make yourself.  Take 1 cup sugar and dissolve in boiling water.  Place into your hummingbird feeder and watch them come!  Be sure to change the nectar as often as necessary especially in warm weather the mixture can become rancid and dangerous for the birds.  Also, hummingbirds tend to enjoy red nectar the best, so add a few drops of food coloring to the mixture!

    Don't forget water!  The best way to provide water to your feathered friends is with a bird bath.

Photo credit:  www.sxc.hu/profile/merlin1075

Categories: backyard birding , bird feeder , what to put in bird feeders