The tips and advice are coming from you… I’m new to this!
Me, recently, to the family message group: “Get ready to be photobombed by all of the birds I see at my new feeders!”
We’ve added some (!) bird feeders to our picture window and they have been so much fun.
Spencer just bought some bird feeders, plant hooks, and different kinds of feed and stuck them in. It worked! We had lots of birds immediately, especially finches.
We started out with just the big finch feeders but the fat robins were still trying to eat from them. Then Spencer got some platform feeders to be more comfortable for the bigger birds.
I have only seen a few finches on my sunflowers a few times. Now with the feeders, we have goldfinches all of the time. There are always at least a couple and Spencer has counted eight at once.
I saw an oriole but Spencer hasn’t yet. He put oranges out for them and hopefully we will get one back. Instead of getting a new feeder just for oranges, I thought the way he rigged this up on the platform was kind of cool.
So, for the tips and advice…
- How do I get different kinds of birds?
- How do I identify the different birds?
- Tell me about your bird feeders!
Love your bird feeders. Currently I have a lot of orioles. They don’t eat the oranges but they LOVE grape jelly. My jelly feeders are designed where you screw the jar of jelly onto the feeder, the jar will be upside down and the jelly dispersed out into the feeder tray. I got mine from Amazon. They also feed at the hummingbird nectar feeders.
If you want to attract woodpeckers (in the winter only) put up a suet feeder and make your own peanut butter suet. Here’s the recipe:
Peanut Butter Suet
1 cup creamy peanut butter (cheapest brand)
1 cup lard or vegetable shortening (cheapest brand)
1 cup flour
4 cups corn meal
Mix all ingredients, form into cakes, place in suet feeder.
If you have squirrels, be prepared to protect suet from these hungry critters so the woodpeckers will actually come. In addition to woodpeckers, titmice & nuthatches also love suet. In the summer the birds who love suet eat insects and the suet will melt in the heat but making suet in winter will definitely get you some interesting birds.
P.S. You can also make your own hummingbird nectar. Just use one part sugar to four parts water, no need for food coloring, mix together, bring to a boil, cool, put in feeder, store extra in fridge. If you get ants in feeder, buy an ant moat.
Thanks Kayla! I love the idea of putting the orange on the wire! Perfect! Love your blog! Now I can find it! Woohoo!