There are a lot of birds at the bird feeder this morning. I see, chickadees, kinglets, titmouse, blue jay, robin in the yard, red head wood pecker in the tree, mocking bird. There is a bird I see very often it looks likes a big titmouse, big as a cardinal = red bird, it is blue/gray color on its back. Maybe there are 2 sizes of titmouse, small & large?
I hope the birds all find a bird house they like, it might be a hard choice with 27 houses to choose from. LOL. I don't try to build cute bird houses anymore birds don't care. The old gray color weathered lumber blends in with the trees. 1 more bird house to build.
We have corrugated metal covers on the patio and carport. Wrens and sparrows love to make there nest there. For 3 years in a row we had a pair of doves that nested in the corner of the carport cover. They were fascinating to watch. They are very sloppy nest builders. No substance to their construction. I learned that the female will lay 2 eggs - one today another tomorrow. The male will sit on the nest during the day and the female will nest at night. The eggs will hatch 12 days after laying. The parents will feed the chicks for 12 days. If they have not flown the coop the chicks will be denied food. The chicks are not totally abandoned. There are lots of potted plants an the patio. The chicks hang out there eating available insects. Mom and Pop visit and offer them nourishment from their craw - a milky substance that they produce.
Construction of bird houses are very breed specific. Baby Sis has Wood Duck houses and bat houses around her pond. I have always wanted Purple Martin houses - they eat their weight in mosquitoes. That was not possible as long as we had our oak tree. Purple Martin houses need very tall poles and a free sight/fly line to the bird house. Since we no longer have our lovely oak tree I have added Purple Martin Houses to G's "to do" list.
5 more bird houses. This makes 33 total bird houses. There was an aphid problem in the garden last summer in August, only thing effected by aphids was tomatoes. I am not sure small birds will eat aphids they were on the under side of all tomato leaves. Now that I know what Praying Mantis eggs look like I will leave them in the garden to hatch. I wonder if there is a way to attract more Praying Mantis?
Gary, that's an attractive bird house on your deck.
I will say something favorable about English Sparrows. They will go through plants and clean aphids off of them.
The sparrows aren't bothered here at home. I don't appreciate them crowding out the native birds but they are just living a bird's life, as their ancestors were. They will often be busy right near me, as I'm out in the yard. They are very happy eating aphids. There may be more than they can get to and English Sparrows are not 100% efficient. Still, they can take some of the pressure off plants suffering from an outbreak of aphids.
I built 2 more bird houses just for sparrows. Online says 6" x 6" x 6" with a 1.5" diameter hole. 1.5" hole seems big so 1 bird house has a 1.25" hole. A 6" square house is large enough for black birds. If black birds nest in them I will have to give them an eviction notice & and a restraining order. LOL
Water is #1. Birds like to drink and splash in, a puddle, pond, bath, fountain, water fall, dripping water. A wide array of bird baths, fountains and mini ponds will attract birds more than anything else.
Other things that attract birds, flowers, grass, vines, bushes, shrubs, trees, a variety of plants, tall weeds, fruit, seeds, berries, humming bird plants.
Birds nest in, shrubs, blackberry briers, small trees, large trees, tall bushes, short bushes, tall weeds, vines, thickets.
Doves and Robins are ground feeders. Doves eat fallen seeds from bird feeders.
A perfect golf course lawn with no plant variety will not attract birds.
Best bird food, oil type sunflower seeds, mixed seeds, corn, rice, wheat, barley, oats, will attract a variety of birds. Black oil sunflower seeds are the most attractive to a wide variety of birds.
A variety of different feeders for each variety of birds will attract the widest variety of birds, hanging feeders, finch feeders, flat feeders, humming bird feeders, roof covered feeders, stationary feeders, single side feeders, multi side feeders, feeders that only allow certain size birds to enter.
jal_ut wrote:Perhaps you should get a good bird book? "The Sibley Guide to Birds" is a good one.
I have this book, Garden Bird Facts. It seems like an good book, there might be a better one. It has color photos of many many birds & eggs, plans to build bird houses, and information about birds.
I have Roger Tory Peterson's Guide. A photograph is not always - just right. (If I'm trying to get a picture of a bird, they never are.) Peterson's illustrations are clear and helpful.
James the only Audubon Society I know of is in Hinderson KY on Hwy 41 just before you cross river bridge to Evansville IN, been there several times in the past 40 yrs that is 200 miles north/east. It has been 10 years since I was last there, it is a nice place.
I bought several NEW junk bird feeders that I need to return for a refund. One finch feeder seeds runs right out on its own. The other finch feeder a little bit of shaking from the wind knocks the seed out. The yellow feeder in the photo has the same problem seeds runs out and wind makes it worse, I might be able to modify the hole with the hot melt glue gun to make it work better. The other swinging feeder looses all its seed in the wind too.
I built 4 ugly bird feeders. As long as they are functional I don't care what they look like and birds probably don't care either. 2 are the same expect for a divider in the center of 1 to make it a 2 sided feeder. The other feeder is see through. There is 1 finch finch feeder at the moment, another one tomorrow. The prison bar feeder only allows small birds in.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
This bird feeder is junk all the seeds run out. It was only $8 maybe I can modify the holes with the glue gun to keep seeds from running out. This plastic thing will probably self destruct in the sun in about 2 years.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
This prison bar feeder only allows small birds in. This type feed was $25 at the store made out of wire. I made this with 2 pieces of scrap 1/4" plywood and limbs from a back yard tree. This will keep out the Blue Jays. This gives me an idea for another bird house.
Bird Buffet seems to be working sun has been up 20 minutes and there are too many birds to count maybe 15 to 18. There are 2 Wrens, I have never seen Wrens this time of the year. Doves are more aggressive than I realized they are keeping the Blue Jays away. Doves even scared off the 1 and only Black bird. The 2 black spotted wood peckers are cute but not close enough for me to get a good photo. I have a few pics of the red color sparrows. There are 4 of these cute birds I have been trying very hard to get pictures of but they are very quick. These cute birds land and grab 1 sunflower seed then go up into the tree to eat it. It take the bird about 60 seconds to hammer that sunflower seed open to eat the inside then they fly down grab 1 seed and fly off again. It is 27 degrees this morning bird water is frozen.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cute bird again, light color breast, orange/brown color under the wings, gray/blue color on tip, pointy feather head. I can not find this bird in my book or online either. Pic is blurred.
The cute grey bird is almost certainly the Tufted Titmouse. The rusty body/side under the wings is distinctive:
Tufted Titmouse, Identification, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tufted_titmouse/id
The red colored “sparrow” is the House Finch. They are somewhat larger than the other finches, which makes you tend to think “sparrow”. Male has the red coloring, females are drab brown all over. They will visit finch feeders with the Goldfinches, and are often seen feeding together even on plant seeds in the garden.
If it is redder — softer darker red, not so orange — all over the head, face and shoulders, I would think it is a Purple Finch.
— I don’t know if they actually flock together — usually, I see the goldfinches flying in a flock by themselves — maybe they are simply attracted to the same food and happened to visit at the time — and/or — they are just used to feeding at the same place at the same time from visiting the feeders together and are unconcerned about mingling while feeding.
In my area, other finch feeder birds that sometimes visit during really cold temp winters are Pine Siskin which look like smaller than normal female House Finch but has a yellow marking ...somewhere that I can’t remember..oh, wings! — and Common Redpoll which are also tiny and just have a sort of a red speck/stripe on their crown that makes me think “odd looking tiny male House/Purple Finch”.
Lessee........ this was about Bird Houses. I make houses for wrens and Flickers. Sure as you put up a house for a Flicker you will have a pair of starlings in it. So what to do to get the starlings to leave it alone?
applestar wrote:The cute grey bird is almost certainly the Tufted Titmouse. The rusty body/side under the wings is distinctive:
Tufted Titmouse, Identification, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tufted_titmouse/id
Applestar this link is a very good source of information. The plans are more detailed than other plans I found. Much better information about birds too. I built 2 more bird houses by the Titmouse Plans. Information says the house must be on a 10 ft pole which I have about 20 of in a pile out back. Now that the 2 new houses are up I realize they need to be relocated to a different place away from the house and near the trees. The link says, titmouse like being near tall trees and forest. There is no information about how many bugs titmouse birds eat or if they eat bugs.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Sat Feb 03, 2018 5:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
James you are correct, every thing I read says water is the #1 attraction for birds. Next I need to shop for a small bird pond, fountain, and other sources of water for birds. We already have a bird bath. I have about 15 water containers for the garden it keeps birds from pecking my tomatoes to get a drink of water.
This sure is a cute bird, very nice pic of the 4 titmouse birds that are coming to the bird feeders.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Sat Feb 03, 2018 5:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.
The bird feeders are very popular every day, 3 to 18 birds all the time. Most popular seeds are black sunflower seeds. I have 2 kinds of seed, mixed bird seed & sunflower seed. Birds fight over the sunflower seeds, soon as they are gone the mixed bird seed is not very popular. Birds are very fast it is very hard to get good pictures. Little birds land for 1/2 second, grab 1 seed then they are gone up into a trees to eat it, larger birds are not so shy. Today I keep seeing, 4 titmouse, 2 chickadee, 2 red birds, 1 mocking birds, 1 spotted red head wood pecker, 2 brown sparrows, 1 red head sparrow. No doves, no blue jays, today. It has been raining slow all day birds not bothered much by the rain. Few days ago when it was raining hard on & off all day birds stayed inside the bird houses, when rain slowed down they fly out to eat sunflower seeds. I need a better camera it is hard to get a good photo in 1/2 a second. I keep moving the table closer and closer to the back door to get better pics but birds are quick. Other bird feeders are too far away to get a good picture.
Small birds are fun to watch inside the prison feeder. Little birds are not worried much about larger birds while they are in there. Sometimes there are 2 small birds inside for a short time then one leaves and another one arrives. Today 2 Red birds are trying to find a way to get inside the prison feeder. 38 degrees and lots of birds to watch. Maybe when it gets warmer I can set at the patio table and birds will get accustom to me being there and not fly away. It was 70 degrees a few days ago wrens are the funniest birds I was setting at the patio table a wren lands on the other side of the table an looks right at me then chirps over & over & over like it is telling me something. I think I was being told to get away. LOL. Other birds have their own limit to how close they will get. Birds have gotten use to the cats sleeping in the patio chairs 8 ft away and the dog sleeping in the recliner chair 12 ft away but birds are not use to me yet. When weather gets nice we eat breakfast, lunch an dinner on the patio table we hope the birds get friendlier.
...it has drainage holes but I think I will make them bigger, and maybe if I can, push a piece of window screen to lay at the bottom so the seeds are raised above the bottle-bottom ridges.
applestar wrote:That’s a fun spot for birdwatching, Gary350
Here’s my skill level for a home made birdfeeder
...it has drainage holes but I think I will make them bigger, and maybe if I can, push a piece of window screen to lay at the bottom so the seeds are raised above the bottle-bottom ridges.
I like your bird feeder, I want 1 too. Hard to see but it looks like you cut several door holes in the soft drink bottle. Plastic bowl is the rain cover. Great idea. What is the red thing? Is that some type wire thing I see inside?
Thanks! The red thing is a plastic lid from a large herb/spice jar with the flip-tops removed. The wire is securing it to the dowel (actually a shortened bamboo chopstick) which provides perch for little birds brave enough to hop inside the holes cut in the side. I also tried cutting slits and was going to heat soften and pull them open into sort of lips, but had to abort.
I think you could also weld/solder the plastic lid on to the opening cut in the bottle maybe, but I can’t take the burning plastic fumes at all, so had to try other options.
6 hummingbird feeders makes from small mason jars. Drill a small hole in the center of the lid then paint flowers on the lid. These do not hang upside and drip all the liquid out. I don't see hummingbirds this time of the year. YouTube videos show about 30 birds buzzing around this type feeder.
The other feeder is made from a soft drink bottle and a grocery store cake plastic cake cover. Birds have been looking at these very close for several days, I have not seen bird eating from it yet.
Sun is coming out today & more rain tomorrow. We already had 3 weeks of rain and 9 more weeks of rain to come.
This is a poor quality photo taken with my iPhone from the upstairs window through the screen, etc. but maybe you can see the pair of House Finches. Earlier, there was one that had sidled along the chopstick to go inside and was hanging nearly upside down to pick up the seeds.
digitS' wrote:... We have California Quail here at home this winter. That's unusual and kind of fun but they are ALWAYS in the distant garden. I don't know if I would really want to encourage them as a garden companion, however. ...
The at-home quail have been doing fairly well this winter. One has apparently been lost out of the original 9 but it seems so likely that they would have trouble with cats.
We don't have a cat but it has been snowing quite often the last few weeks, and I know --- when I go outside this morning that I will find cat tracks in my yard.
I haven't seen the nextdoor neighbor's calico in about 2 months. I'm afraid to ask her about her cat. We are only about 30 yards from a busy arterial. Anyway, it isn't her cat leaving tracks and it doesn't really matter because it's impossible for this yard or any other to be cat-free in this neighborhood.
Come spring, the quail just cannot be nesting here. In nearly 25 years, I have almost never even seen them within about 500 yards of my home. At that distance, they are often around. It's probably 3 acres of grass and small trees. To the south there are businesses with large parking lots. It can't be a very good place for a cat. ... altho I've seen raccoons. And, I am waiting for the turkeys to show up ...
Gary, you could start a thread on what birds are worst for the gardener . The turkeys weren't around often enough to cause any noticeable harm the season they showed up in the distant garden but the pheasants all but moved into my salad garden one year!
Today, there was a Carolina Wren inside that soda bottle feeder, which House Finches were clustered around on various perches waiting their turn.
Other birds that are frequent recent visitors are Mourning Doves, Cardinals, Juncos, White Throated Sparrows and Song Sparrows who stay on the ground waiting for oily seed eaters like Chickadees, Tufted Titmouses/(mice?), and White-breasted Nuthatches, occasional Red bellied and Downy Woodpeckers, as well as the House Finches to flick unwanted seeds out/down in search of their favorites. Squirrels attack the feeders too and drop a bunch on the ground in the process for the ground feeders.
I put a lot of white safflower seeds in the mix, which nobody but the Cardinals particularly want, so there are two pairs of Cardinals that come around — females seem to not mind pecking around on the ground together, but the males tend to posture in the trees above and occasionally swoop each other.
I did see Starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds the other day. Maybe they have come back early because of the warm spell.
applestar, that is great on the Cedar Waxwing. Speaking about Red-winged Blackbirds, there has been a big flock of them here about 50 I would guess. They like to hang out in my orchard and come visit the feeder.
. The turkeys weren't around often enough to cause any noticeable harm the season they showed up in the distant garden but the pheasants all but moved into my salad garden one year!
