The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher's Home Companion

backyard birding / birding books / birdwatching books

By: Donald S. Heintzelman

What readers say about The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher 's Home Companion

A complete and useful reference,
"This book is exactly what its cover promises: a "single-source reference for all your needs." I've seen many recent publications that discuss some, but not nearly all, of the backyard birdwatching topics that Mr. Heintzelman presents in up-to-date detail. He not only informs but also inspires the reader to use the suggestions he offers for landscaping, nest boxes, feeders, water and shelter, and controlling pests and predators. Two other especially good chapters include tips on identifying birds and an easy-to-grasp introduction to birds' natural history. An especially valuable feature concludes the book. Usually an appendix isn't much more than an afterthought, but that's not the case here. Six important appendices list information for contacting bird-oriented internet sites, organizations, government programs, and companies that sell equipment, plus suggestions for further reading. I've had the book for only a week, and I'm already using those lists. Overall, this is a very attractive and useful resource for the backyard birdwatcher."
-anonymous

The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher's Home Companion,
'We have a shelf of bird books but none, so far, as complete and helpful as this one. The author is well known and highly respected in his field. The book is beautifully printed and organized, meticulously researched with valuable help and information for every level of bird enthusiast from beginner to expert. The Internet links are up-to-date and make available valuable additional information. I recommend this book without reservation to everyone who is interested in birds, wants to learn more about them, set up or enhance a habitat, photograph or simply enjoy these wonderful and fascinating creatures. This book also makes an excellent gift."
-J. Leahy

The Indeed Complete Birdwatcher's Guide,
"Donald S. Heintzelman's new book "The Complete Backyard Birdwatcher's Home Companion" is an informative guide for anyone, especially beginners and intermediate level birdwatchers, interested in learning about the birds that we see around us on our journey through life. The book is amazing, because it is indeed complete. It covers not only a concise history about birds and how they evolved with their different features. It also deals with all the "how to's" of birdwatching and identification and shows how we can responsibly attract birds to our own backyards. The book gives innumerable tips on feeding, housing and birdwatching equipment and generously shares resources. Truly this book is a treasure for the beginning and intermediate level backyard birder."
-Christina van Gelder

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How To Attract Birds

backyard birding / bird house

You might decide you don't want your birds to just drop by to eat and take a bath.  Perhaps you'd like it if they'd stick around while.  Try putting up a bird house or two.

In the bird house business, there's no such thing as "one size fits all." Decide which bird you want to attract, and then get a house for that particular bird. Look through any book or catalog and you'll see bird houses of all sizes and shapes, with perches and without, made of materials you might not have thought of:  recycled paper, gourds, plastic, rubber, pottery, metal and concrete. The proper combination of quality materials and design makes a good birdhouse.

Wood is just about the best building material for any birdhouse. It's durable, has good insulating qualities and breathes. Three-quarter-inch thick bald cypress and red cedar are recommended. Pine and exterior grade plywood will do, but they are not as durable.  It makes no difference whether the wood is slab, rough-cut or finished, as long as the inside has not been treated with stains or preservatives. Fumes from the chemicals could harm the birds.

You can decorate the outside of your birdhouse however you want.  Do you want your martins to hang out in a Victorian home or have your cardinals roost in a clubhouse?  Anything goes as far as the outside of the house is concerned.  Don't put an aluminum roof on your bird house, however.  The glare from the sun will cause birds to shy away.  Be sure to provide ventilation, drainage, and easy access for maintenance and monitoring.

How elaborate you make your bird house depends on your own tastes. In addition to where you place the box, the most important considerations are: box height, depth, floor dimensions, diameter of entrance hole and height of the hole above the box floor.

You should provide air vents in bird boxes. There are two ways to provide ventilation: leave gaps between the roof and sides of the box, or drill 1/4 inch holes just below the roof.

Water becomes a problem when it sits in the bottom of a bird house. A roof with sufficient slope and overhang offers some protection. Drilling the entrance hole on an upward slant may also help keep the water out. Regardless of design, driving rain will get in through the entrance hole. You can assure proper drainage by cutting away the corners of the box floor and drilling 1/4 inch holes. Nest boxes will last longer if the floors are recessed about 1/4 inch.

Look for the entrance hole on the front panel near the top. A rough surface both inside and out makes it easier for the adults to get into the box and, when it's time, for the nestlings to climb out. 
If your box is made of finished wood, add a couple of grooves outside below the hole. Open the front panel and add grooves, cleats or wire mesh to the inside. Never put up a bird house with a perch below the entrance hole.

Perches offer starlings, house sparrows and other predators a convenient place to wait for lunch. Don't be tempted by duplexes or houses that have more than one entrance hole. Except for purple martins, cavity-nesting birds prefer not to share a house. While these condos look great in your yard, starlings and house sparrows are inclined to use them.

Where you put your bird house is as important as its design and construction. Cavity-nesting birds are very particular about where they live. If you don't have the right habitat, the birds are not likely to find the house. You can modify your land to attract the birds you want to see by putting out a bird bath, planting fruit-bearing shrubs, including more trees or installing a pond with a waterfall.
Don't put bird houses near bird feeders.  Houses mounted on metal poles are less vulnerable to predators than houses nailed to tree trunks or hung from tree limbs.

Use no more than four small nest boxes or one large box per acre for any one species.  Don't put more than one box in a tree unless the tree is extremely large or the boxes are for different species.  If you have very hot summers, face the entrance holes of your boxes north or east to avoid overheating the box.

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

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Build A Birdbath In Your Garden

backyard bird watching / backyard birding / birdbath

Kindness is a birdbath. Your little circle of clean, cool water under a leafy branch is a kindness to the birds, because fresh clean water can sometimes be the hardest necessity for birds to come by. And it's a kindness to yourself and your family, too, because watching the birds at the birdbath will bring you great happiness.

In fact, a birdbath is one of the easiest ways to bring birds up close, where you can get a really good look at them. You can attract even more species of birds with water than with a feeder.

Bird feeders usually cater to seed-eaters, such as cardinals, blue jays, and sparrows. Birds that eat insects or fruit, such as wrens, catbirds, and waxwings, usually don't find anything at the feeder to interest them. But the birdbath entices all kinds of birds, from robins to screech owls. It will expand your awareness of the variety of life.

Commercial bird baths are available at many discount stores and gardening or home improvement store, but you can make a birdbath out of almost anything.  Just make sure it provides what the birds need most cool, clean water!

What kind of birdbath is best?  It needs to be shallow - no deeper than three inches at the center. It should be even shallower at the edge, so that a bird can ease its way in. Many commercial birdbaths are too deep. If you already own a deep birdbath, you can put rocks in it to raise the bottom, though this will make it a little harder to keep clean.

Consider adding a fountain or something to provide a bit of a drip.  The plinking sound of falling water is pure invitation to birds. It dramatically increases the number of species that visit a birdbath. For example, hummingbirds would never wade into the bath like other birds, because they bathe only in flight. But many have watched hummers zipping back and forth through the drips of a bird bath, timing their flights so that they catch a water drop on their backs on each pass.

There are many ways to arrange for a drip. You can run a hose so that it trickles into the water; or install a small spray fountain designed for birdbaths; or suspend above the bath a bucket that has a 1/2-inch hole in the bottom with a bit of cloth stuffed through the hole as a wick.

Also make sure your bird bath is rough bottomed. Birds don't want to lose their footing, and they will hesitate to use a bath with a glazed, slippery bottom. Cement is good. If you already possess a slick birdbath, you can apply the non-skid stickers that are sold for people-baths.

Place your bird bath within view from a window. Don't forget to put yourself in this picture. Place the birdbath where you can see it from indoors, from your desk, dining room, or kitchen sink.  Put the basin on a pedestal. It's easy to see from the house, easy to clean, and safer from predators. Alternatively, you can buy a birdbath designed to hang from a tree.

Make your birdbath easy to clean and refill by placing it close enough to reach with a hose. However, locate your birdbath away from your feeding station, because seeds and droppings would soil the water quickly. Change the water every few days, or even every day in hot weather. Dump it out or squirt it out with the hose. It's a good idea to keep a scrub brush outside with gardening tools, so that you can brush out any algae that might begin to form.

Place the bird bath where predators cannot get to your visitors.  Cats, for example, like to lie in wait beneath shrubbery or behind a concealing object and then pounce on the birds when they're wet and can't fly well. So put your birdbath at least five to ten feet from such hiding places. Give the birds a chance to see the cat coming.  Also provide the birds with an escape route.  The ideal location is under some branches that hang down within two or three feet of the bath. A wet bird can flutter a few feet up to the safety of the leaves. If you follow these instructions, soon a robin will land on the rim of your birdbath. He'll dip his bill into the water and then raise his head to let the water run down inside his throat. Then he'll hop in and splash exuberantly. He'll dunk his head and let the water rush over his back. He'll sit and soak.

When he's finished bathing, he'll fly onto the nearest branch, where he'll shake off and begin to preen his feathers, drawing them one by one through his bill.

A bird in the bath is the soul of enjoyment. The sight of it, even a chance glimpse through the window, will provide you too with a splash of happiness.

Photo credit: www.sxc.hu/profile/Joanie49

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Using Bird Feeders To Attract Birds In Your Backyard

backyard birding / bird feeder / what to put in bird feeders

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

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