Having fun watching my bird feeder (squirrel, back yard, how to, birds)

[Newdaawn]

I'm having so much fun this morning watching the birds come to my feeder. It seems in the past they just haven't come but this time I put up a tubular shaped one with 4 perches plus the area at the bottom of it, and used just the sunflower seeds. Success! I am thinking of getting another feeder and using a mixed seed to see if I may get a bigger variety of birds. These I am seeing today are chicadees and another type that is about the same size but are shades of brown. I am in mid Maine. Any suggestions welcome.

[Caladium]

Thistle socks are very inexpensive (usually about $3-4) and attract the tinier birds who like to pull thistle through the weave. We get lots of very colorful finches with them. The squirrels went after them at first but apparently have decided they're boring and haven't gone near the thistle socks since July.

A bird bath attracts birds, too.

[ArkansasSlim]

Over the past 50+ years, first in the country and now in town, we have tried about everything, but for the past several years it has been only thistle and black oil sunflower seed. I don't know any bird that will not feed on one or the other. Also, we have found that "wild bird seed" is a total waste of money. They use a red, hard, seed as a filler and we have found that nothing will feed on it. That red seed may be millet or sorghum, but I don't know for sure.

[floridacara]

We use the "wild bird seed" as it's the cheapest at Walmart - $5.50 for a 20 pound bag that lasts a month or so. We get an assortment of birds - doves, bluejays, cardinals, something that looks like a bluejay but is black/grey, some other really tiny songbirds, woodpeckers, and even some crows. I'm not super on bird recognition yet, and it took a couple of weeks for the birds to notice the feeder, but now that they all know it's there, we usually have one bird or another out there at all times.

We also get squirrels, and I've thought about upgrading to a squirrel-proof feeder, but honestly I enjoy watching them eat, too.

My favorite are the doves. They'll eat seed scattered on the ground, and make some of the prettiest sounds.

We get birds trapped on our back porch fairly frequently, since we keep the screen door open (it's either that, or my daughter pops the screen loose in order to get outside... sigh), and I've gotten to be a pro at catching and releasing the poor things. I caught a small owl (screech owl, we think) a couple of months back. That was exciting!

[pumpkin5]

I love the way the owl looks. My sister has an owl box and I've always wanted to get one for my back yard. The baby owls are adorable.

[alsidw]

Bird feeders are really busy at night. Go out and take a look. The fallen seed is very attractive to a host of 4 leg varmits. Some neighbors learned of this and did away with the feeders. I love birds too but best left alone lest they forget how to forage. When snow comes that is another matter to help them.