So you have finally decided you want to feed birds.
Great idea. Tens of thousands around the world gain great personal satisfaction from this activity. And chances are that you will as well.
But now you have to decide how to get started. And even before you start, you need to understand that there is one serious responsibility you take on as a bird feeder.
I don’t mean that once you start you are committed to keep your feeders full. You should understand that if birds come to your feeders, it is because it is convenient for them. If you stop feeding your visitors, they will return to other resources, which may be insects overwintering in one of their hibernation-like diapausal states, as eggs or in pupal cases. Or it may be fruit still remaining from last summer’s crop. Or it may even be your neighbor’s feeder.
Instead, you should understand your responsibility to keep your feeders clean. This is a serious matter as birds do foul feeders with their feces and unclean feeders can spread diseases like the conjunctivitis that in recent years caused blindness among house finches and even a few goldfinches and pine siskins. Weekly cleaning of feeders and birdbaths is a necessary part of your role. I will have more to say about this in a later column.
Okay, you’re up to that. So let’s shop with your birding catalog or at the local birding store. And here is where culture shock sets in. The array of feeders is mind-bending. There are all kinds of tubes and all kinds of globes and all kinds of platforms and all kinds of suet cages. There are feeders for different bird species: hummingbirds, orioles, woodpeckers, finches, doves. There are squirrel-proof feeders. (With deer and bears raiding feeders in some areas, we may soon see feeders that somehow protect against them as well.)
You will probably find yourself overwhelmed and, unless you have a helpful store employee to assist you, you might even give up the whole idea.
Don’t do that. Instead, simply start small and build on any success you have. If I were beginning again, I would begin with two things: a suet or cake feeder and a pan for water.
A suet feeder is a cage that holds a block of prepared suet or even suet you can purchase from a butcher and modify yourself. There are all kinds of suet feeders and they are quite inexpensive. Base your decision which one to buy on whether you plan to hang it with a string or attach it to a tree or wall.
Suet feeders attract all kinds of woodpeckers as well as chickadees and nuthatches. (Unfortunately, they attract starlings as well. Starlings may well be your first visitors, but don’t be too put off: they will call the attention of other species to your feeder.)
Cake feeders are more expensive but they attract more kinds of birds as well, because they have seeds embedded in a suet base. In northern states they might draw in goldfinches, siskins, redpolls as well as the rarer pine and evening grosbeaks.
Water is welcome all year long, and a pan of water is attractive to all kinds of birds. The snow may be two feet deep but birds will be delighted to drink and splash around in a birdbath. Some people simply put out a pan of warm water every morning, with the water only an inch or so deep.
One problem is that really cold weather will freeze that water rapidly. Today, many birders either buy heated bird baths or add a heater to their water pan to really spoil the birds, who can then luxuriate in a warm bath off and on all day. In this case I urge you to buy a heating element designed for this purpose as you’ll want an insulated heater.
Once you have your feeding area set up, be prepared to wait. And wait. And often wait some more. Birds are creatures of habit and, although you will have provided a nice feeding and bathing area for them, it will take time for them to accommodate to your offerings. This delay I consider the most annoying aspect of bird feeding.
When they do begin to visit, you can start thinking about expanding your operation to include seed trays and tubes. I’ll talk about them in another column.
- By Gerry Rising