Types of birds in Tennessee (Gray: house, live, woodpecker)

[dreamofmonterey]

and attracting more to your backyard? Anyone know what else besides sunflower seed?- there are a ton of birds here- beautiful cardinals, blue jays (Long gone in parts of NY) many robins, mourning doves, chickadees, finches.

http://www.blueridgemuse.com/muse2/images/Dec05/120705birds.jpg (broken link)

[alleycat]

Some birds, such as finches, prefer thistle seeds. Also, a few birds are suet and fruit eaters. You might put out an apple past its prime and/or get a suet feeder.

I mainly use black oil sunflower seed.

Nice photo, by the way.

[frbenson]

Thistle seeds will attract smaller birds, such as finches; and suet will be appreciated by all birds (and squirrels!), especially during the winter months.

[jmarkey]

I noticed lately the seed blocks I put out are attracting some large woodpeckers.

My very favorite are the hummingbirds. We get a huge population of them in the summer. Love to watch them drop down to the bottom screen on the porch to look at the dogs.

[alleycat]

You can also crack some of the sunflower seed for the smaller birds. Just put them in an old towel or cloth and whack 'em a few times with a hammer against a solid surface. Some of the smaller bird have trouble getting sunflower seed open. When I lived at my parents's house, we would do that with hard corn too because we had lots of corn around.

[mbmouse]

I love the birds!
In the last few winter months I have been adding different feeders and feed to my back yard, we now have a bird zoo and I love it! I have 7 feeding stations. On the back deck I have 2 different sized feeders that have just a mixed bird seed. The chickadees, tufted tit mice, nut hatches, sparrows love these. I have one thistle seed bag that the gold finches and doves like, the bag hangs just low enough that the doves sit on the back of a bench on the porch and reach the bottom of the bag. I have two different types of feeders with sunflower seed, one typical box and glass and the other is a long tube. The little birds such as house finches and chickadees like the tube and the cardinals and fly catchers like the box. I also tie a block wood pecker bar to one pole and the little woodpeckers like that. Out in the yard, hanging from the trees I have a corn cob block on a bungee cord which is supposed to be for the squirrels (yes, I love the squirrels and invite them to my feeders hahahahaha) but the wood peckers love it! We have 4 varieties of wood peckers now. I also hang a bird seed bell and not only do the grackles and blue jays like that but so does the squirrel! I also have a multi type feeder on the porch that has mixed seed in the middle, a berry block on one side and a suet block on the other, everyone seems to want a bit of that. I have only the hummingbird feeder out front.
So if you put on a variety of feeders and types of food and give every variety a bit of space in between the feeders, you will get all kinds of birds.
I can not keep track of all of them, but I do know we have at least 6 woodpeckers, 4 different varieties, 4 pairs of Cardinals, 3 pairs of house finches, several gold finches (which are green and black in winter, yellow and black in summer) robins, a pair of blue birds, many different little sparrows, several pairs of chickadees, a pair of nuthatches, one fly catcher, several Blue Jays and may other birds. We LOVE looking out our back windows all through out the day. I will try to get some pictures and post them of our back yard friends.

[dreamofmonterey]

Originally Posted by jmarkey

I noticed lately the seed blocks I put out are attracting some large woodpeckers.

My very favorite are the hummingbirds. We get a huge population of them in the summer. Love to watch them drop down to the bottom screen on the porch to look at the dogs.

How do you get the hummingbirds? I had the sugar feeder(they never used)- does it need to be separate from the others??. (I also have about 4-5 squirrels-lol- and possibly a family of squirrels under the deck- so maybe the hummingbirds stay away?

Funny story about the dogs too!


sunny

[alleycat]

You need to put the hummingbird feeders out early and change the "sugar water" often. The water itself doesn't have to be colored, but it's best if the feeder is red.

[jmarkey]

I put out the feeder last May "by request." Before we screened in the back porch, the hummingbirds were buzzing me while I was out there reading.

The feeder I got is shaped like a UFO, has a band around the outside where they can perch and feed (I think they eat longer if they can sit), and has a bright red top where the feeding ports are.

I change the water and clean it about every five days. I think I read that bacteria can form if the water isn't changed frequently, especially once it gets hot outside. Don't use any soaps when you're cleaning it out. I just use hot water and a little brush.

Squirrels shouldn't bother them. Once they get used to activity around the feeder, NOTHING bothers them. They're pretty bold. I get buzzed a lot when I'm outside in the evening near the feeder.

Just put a feeder out in May, keep the sugar water fresh and see who shows up. It may take a while before you get "regulars". Their feeder isn't near the other bird feeders. I don't know if that makes a difference.

Good luck!

[ALML]

I love watching the birds. Can't wait to get there as the variety here is pretty limited.......but our hummers are really bold as well!!! We only get robins when they are flying up north in the spring. I miss seeing all the different kinds! I'm pretty sure I heard one of em say to another, "Hey I know a good place to eat in Gray!" LOL
Look forward to the pictures.