We get a wide variety of backyard birds, most of whom stay around to brave the New England winter, and they are fascinating. We are endlessly entertained by the nature that visits our back deck! We pay for the show in birdseed. I have 2 bird feeders that I keep filled year round.
Winter arrived on the deck rather early this year, which was pretty, and melted quickly - blessedly since it was way too early for this. But it got me thinking about keeping my backyard birds happily fed for the cold weather months ahead!
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We spend a lot of time out on the deck communing with nature, and the birds are so used to us now most of them will stay on the feeders even when I walk up to them to take them down for a refill…sometimes I wonder if we have broken nature since they are so unafraid of us…or maybe that is how it is really meant to be. I feel a responsibility to care for these feathered friends.
In any case, we have a squirrel proof feeder that I love - you can set the tension so that anything too heavy drops the ring and closes the holes. I fill that one with either a songbird mix or black oil sunflower seeds. The feeder is many years old and try as they might, the squirrels cannot get into it. I’ve seen some impressive, olympics-worthy gymnastics with them trying, though! Don’t feel too bad for them, I do feed the squirrels occasionally too…sometimes not entirely on purpose. This little guy had quite the feast on my fall decor recently! He enjoyed a hearty, socially distanced breakfast with me sitting 6 feet away sipping tea.
My breakfast date with a squirrel
And my chipmunk trio, Hoover, Roomba, and Cheeks, are light enough to actually gorge on the bird feeder. It is squirrel-proof, but not chipmunk-proof.
Early in the summer, our chipmunks enjoying the bird feeder….to a chorus of very disgruntled protesting blue jays
A few months later, our chipmunks are heavy enough to almost close the ports on the feeder, but not quite!
Our second feeder is a thistle feeder. It is a big attraction for our goldfinches and house finches, but our other smaller birds seem to like it too. This one also seems to appeal to the chipmunks, but a bit less so since they have to work harder to retrieve the thistle seed from the tiny slits. Sometimes they just use it for recreational swinging?!
Chipmunk peek-a-boo
I also have this gorgeous bird bath my children gave me for Mother’s Day this year…smart kids - they checked my post with the Mother’s Day gift guide and got me exactly what I wanted! It is a durable faux stone and shallow enough that the birds just LOVE it. All our woodland creatures use it for sipping. We have very fastidious blue jays that bathe in it every afternoon, and some intrepid chickadees and tufted titmice that splash around occasionally. There have been numerous bird pool parties in it this season and I’ll keep it filled as much of the winter as I can. I doubt the birds are interested in ice-skating parties, but you never know, our birds have proven to be quite unusual?! I might try out one of these submersible bird bath heaters for winter - hot tub parties will undoubtedly ensue!
I have plans to add a bird feeder or two to the patio outside my newly overhauled home office (from the fall ORC) on the side of the house. The patio is at the top of our driveway and surrounded on two sides by raised planting beds. My gardening skills are suspect anyway and this corner of the house faces north-east, which means while my office has ideal light for color and material selection, the little patio and garden doesn’t get much sunlight, BUT it is surrounded by trees and thus birds. The idea of a bird feeder I can view from my office makes me happy.
Here are some favorites of mine for attracting entertainment in the form of feathered friends:
Squirrel-proof Bird Feeder | Thistle Seed Finch Feeder| Suet Feeder | Nantucket Cottage Birdhouse
These feeders are favorites because the non-bird visitors can’t clean them out in one sitting. High fat foods like black sunflower seeds and suet are important for birds in winter as the natural food supply diminishes and they need calorie laden foods to keep warm in harsher temperatures. The suet feeder holds cakes of suet with seeds and berries. And the bird house, while adorable, is also very functional. Big selling points in the bird real estate market: non-toxic materials are essential, and an access panel that opens for cleaning after nesting season is highly desirable!
What favorite birds visit YOUR backyard?
