For most folks, feeding wild birds means bird seed in feeders. Ann Koch of Everett has taken it one step further.
“I feed our local robin and thrush population by digging deep into my compost pile, where the worms are most prolific, and filling a five-gallon bucket with compost,” Koch said.
“Then I spread it on pieces of scrap plywood in the middle of our lawn. The robins and thrushes quickly zone in on the feast and within a few hours have gobbled up everything edible.
“It’s an extraordinary sight … along the lines of ‘build it and they will come!’ “
Koch is one of 50 million people who feed wild birds in the United States, although some ways are more effective than others. Call it the holistic approach to bird feeding.
Gimme shelter
A feeder on a pole in the middle of a lawn is not attractive to birds, which prefer brush piles, bushes and trees that provide shelter from storms and predators such as hawks and cats.
Mike Blackbird, president of the Pilchuck Audubon Society, has a view of his feeders about 8 feet from his home-office window in Lynnwood. Nearby is a rose arbor that acts as a scout tree.
“It allows birds to get close to the feeder while staying under cover,” Blackbird said. “They can scope it all out but it’s not so close that the squirrels can leap to the feeder.”
His 50-by-100-foot back yard draws juncos, chestnut-backed chickadees, steller’s jays, northern flickers – and an unusual visitor, a yellow-shafted flicker – varied thrushes, nuthatches, bush tits, finches, towhees, and hairy and downy woodpeckers.
What’s on the menu?
Virginia Clark, who lives in the Bryant area of Arlington, buys about eight 20-pound sacks of mixed seed, a 50-pound sack of sunflower seeds, 40 pounds of sunflower chips (no hulls), and about a dozen suet blocks – a month.
The prime rib of bird food is the black-oil sunflower seed. It’s high in oil and fat content, fairly easy for small birds to crack and fits in almost every feeder.
Sunflower chips are more expensive but last two or three times longer than a similar-sized bag of whole seeds. They’re easier for small birds to handle and don’t cause a mess because there are no hulls.
Little round millet seeds make up the bulk of mixed birdseed but many birds flick them out of the feeder and concentrate on the few sunflower seeds.
Pine siskins and finches like expensive Niger thistle seed. It’s tiny and needs a feeder with tiny holes. Safflower seeds are sold locally but Northwest birds are generally not fond of them.
Suet is animal fat, usually rendered into commercial suet cakes and popular with most species. It’s put in a wire cage and hung from a branch or tied to a tree trunk. Don’t buy the kind that contains whole seeds because the seeds are so slippery with fat that they’re almost impossible to break open.
Or you can keep the fat trimmed from your steaks. Birds will eat it whole but grinding or slicing it makes it easier for them. Freeze it until you’re ready to put it in a cage or onion bag.
Add water to your menu and watch the birds increase in number. Not only is it a necessary part of their diet but a shallow container of water doubles as a good bird bath.
Feeder types
Clark has several types of feeders in her front yard: tube, platform, hopper and wire for suet.
Her methods have proven to be successful.
“Right now, I see 25 finches in the trees, six black-capped chickadees, two Steller’s jays on the ground, five towhees, four fox sparrows, two song sparrows, probably about 15 juncos and 25 mourning doves are sitting on my power lines,” Clark said.
Basic feeder types include:
Platform: The simplest feeder is easiest for ground feeders and larger birds. A wire mesh bottom allows rain to pass through. But strong winds can blow away the seed and the platform collects bird droppings, so extra cleaning is necessary.
Hopper: It’s usually a barn shape of plexiglass panels. The seeds are accessible through openings at the bottom of the panels. Hoppers can be suspended or mounted on a pole.
Tube: A long cylinder with short-perch-and-hole combinations is best-suited for small birds and gives them respite from larger birds that tend to take over a hopper or platform feeder.
Globe: It’s similar to a tube feeder but round. The flight approach to the feeding holes is from the bottom, ideal for chickadees and nuthatches but discouraging to woodpeckers.
If your feeders are taken over by aggressive species, consider putting them inside wire cages that keep out larger birds.
Ironically, threatened or endangered species are rarely helped by bird feeders. Some people say humans gain far more from bird-feeding than the birds.
Mike Blackbird has been bird-watching for 25 years, ever since he saw a white-tailed kite overhead.
“It was such a beautiful bird and its nest was near where we lived in Santa Barbara,” he said. “You see something really distinctive like that and it changes your whole perspective.”
Free bird talk
Neil Zimmerman of the Seattle Audubon Society will give a talk about sharing your yard and garden with birds. He’ll offer a bird’s-eye view of what plants appeal to birds, provide the skinny on different styles of bird feeders and types of food, and talk about how to identify your visitors.
It will be at 1 p.m. today at Sky Nursery, 18528 Aurora Ave. N., Shoreline; call 206-546-4851.
It’s free.
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