If you have trouble attracting white-throated sparrows to your feeding area this winter, here are a couple of tips that might solve your problem.
First, keep in mind white-throated sparrows spend much of their time on close to the ground deep within shrubby, overgrown areas. If your yard does not possess such a spot, chances are slim white-throated sparrows will winter there.
If you do have a shrubby spot or two, place food near these areas. The reason for this is, as a rule white-throated sparrow are reluctant to venture far from these safe havens.
It is also a good idea to scatter millet or other small seeds on the ground. Although the birds will feed from elevated feeders, they seem to prefer to dining on or very close to the ground.
For decades, Project FeederWatch has been surveying bird feeding activities throughout the United States and Canada. The data collected has provided biologists with valuable insights into the habits of people that feed birds as well as the possible impacts of bird feeding on bird populations. Here are a few of the findings of this monumental study.
On the average, participants in the FeederWatch Project feed in excess of 300 pounds of seeds and 20 pounds of suet and bird “pudding” each winter.
By far, the most common offering proved to be mixed seed. In addition to mixed seed, the foods fed most often were suet, black-oil sunflower, and niger seed.
The study also found the feeders most popular among FeederWatch participants were hanging feeders (98%), suet holders (83%), and raised platforms (68%).
How does your own bird feeding activities compare to the results of this survey?
It is truly a challenge to attract a pileated woodpecker to a feeder. I have been feeding birds for more than a half a century and have never fed a morsel of food to a pileated woodpecker. However, pileated woodpeckers do visit backyard bird feeders. According to data collected in Project FeederWatch, less than a quarter of the people that feed birds in the Southeast host pileated woodpeckers.
Personally, I can count on one hand the number of people that have told me they have been able to attract our largest woodpecker to their feeders. However, several years ago Leon and Julie Neel told me that pileated woodpeckers visited a homemade suet feeder outside their home near Thomasville. This feeder was truly unique and beautiful. The feeder was a large cypress knee. Suet was packed into a number of large holes drilled around the knee. This feeder was both functional and beautiful.
If you want to meet the challenge of trying to attract a pileated woodpecker to your feeders, there are a few facts you need to know. First,
The pileated woodpecker was not considered a feeder bird until the 1950s. Since that time, pileated woodpeckers have visited feeders more frequently.
If a pileated woodpecker begins visiting your feeder, it will typically be extremely cautious. However, its trepidation will somewhat diminish with time.
Initially, only one bird will visit a feeder. However, don’t be surprised if the bird’s mate visits later. The reason for this is the members of a pair of pileated woodpeckers maintain a bond with one another throughout the entire year. In addition, they occupy the same territory throughout all seasons. However, they are more tolerant of other pileated woodpeckers that might enter their territory during the winter.
The best food to use to attract pileated woodpeckers is suet. You can use either plain or peanut butter suet.
Suet should be offered in a large feeder. Large feeders attached to the trunk of a tree work well. Suet can also be smeared into the bark of a tree. Some folks have been successful in attracting the birds to large log suet feeders suspended on poles. Others smear a layer of suet between two slabs of wood, which are attached to a tree.
If you are going to try to meet the pileated woodpecker challenge this winter, go into it with realistic expectations. Chances are you will not be successful. However, if are patient, you just may be rewarded with the rare opportunity of being able to see pileated woodpeckers on a regular basis.
Now that our days are characterized by low humidity and cool temperatures, it finally does feel like autumn. While the weather has changed, the complexion of our gardens has been undergoing a major transformation. Those of us that try to provide wild pollinators with food throughout as much of the year as possible still have an abundance of nectar-bearing flowers in full bloom. However, alongside them are the dried seed heads of plants that bloomed earlier in the year. Although our first impulse is often to remove these plants, I wish you would consider leaving at least a portion of them for birds that feed predominantly on seeds.
The list of the flowering plants that produce seeds eaten by birds is quite long. Here is a short list of some of the more popular plants that produce nutritious seeds for birds: black-eyed susan, coneflower, cosmos, aster, scarlet sage, zinnia, coreopsis, and blanket flower.
Birds will eat these seeds directly from seed heads or when the seeds fall to the ground. In addition, it matters not whether the plants grew in containers on a deck or patio or in a traditional garden.
My wife and I have truly enjoyed watching cardinals and American goldfinches feeding on scarlet sage and zinnia seeds produced by plants grown in large containers on our deck.
It never ceases to amaze me how a cardinal can pick up a tiny scarlet sage with its large beak.
Among the birds that do not miss a chance to eat the seeds of nectar plants during the fall and winter are the northern cardinal, dark-eyed junco, chipping sparrow, and American goldfinch.
If you want to add a new facet to bird feeding, simply resist the impulse to create a tidy garden. Let the plants that produced the stunning floral display remain standing.
If you do, you will be providing your autumn/winter avian visitors with a great source of food. Meanwhile, you will enjoy watching the fascinating behavior of birds foraging for flower seeds.
At this time of the year, both resident and migratory birds are feasting on a variety of colorful berries such as American beautyberry and pokeberries. However, have you noticed birds are not flocking to a native plant that produces one of the most colorful berries–the American Holly?
Nowadays if you peer into the foliage of an American holly, you will discover that the berries that are synonymous with winter and Christmas are still green. Even when they ripen, it will be a while before birds begin dining on these shiny red berries. In fact, in most years, American holly berries will remain on the tree well into winter and provide birds with a valuable source of food long after the last beautyberry or pokeberry has been gobbled up.
Among the reasons birds do not seek out holly berries when they first ripen is they are rock-hard and very bitter. It is only after the berries have been exposed to one or more frosts do they begin to soften up. Their exposure to cold weather also breaks down the chemicals that make the so bitter. Even then, they are not considered a choice food. American holly berries are not rich in many nutrients, although they are high in fats and oils.
However, when birds have little else to eat, they will dine on dine on holly berries. For birds that rely heavily on fruits and berries, holly berries can mean the difference between life and death.
A woman in Walton County once told me that, in winter, she often decorates her window boxes with branches of American holly covered with its showy red berries. She went on the say that one-winter birds did not eat a single berry the entire winter. However, one extremely cold March day a flock of robins descended on her yard. Before the flock departed, the birds had eaten every single berry that had adorned the holly boughs placed in her window boxes.
In addition to the American robin, among the more than two dozen species of birds that eat American holly berries are the northern cardinal, eastern bluebird, northern mockingbird, wild turkey, and northern bobwhite.
This is just another example of the fact that we need to provide a wide variety of plants that provide food and cover for birds throughout the entire year.
Recently I wrote about the how birds are attracted to American beautyberry. In response to this blog, one of our fellow bloggers, Elizabeth Neace, was kind enough let us know this beautiful native shrub can easily be rooted using cuttings. This is great news for anyone wanting to incorporate this native into his or her landscape.
I want to thank Elizabeth for sharing her backyard secret with us. I am sure many folks will benefit from this valuable tip.
Whenever my wife and I stumble across a plant that proves to be a great addition to our backyard wildlife gardens, we like to share our discovery with others. One of our latest discoveries is sulphur cosmos (Cosmos sulphureous).
Over the years we have planted a number of different varieties of cosmos. However, none of have proven to attract as many butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators as sulphur cosmos. We have also found the flowers are popular with both bumblebees and carpenter bees.
As such, we have enjoyed watching these rotund pollinators land on cosmos blossoms and ride them downward toward the ground.
We have planted sulphur cosmos in a couple of mass plantings. However, it is purported to grow well in containers also.
We have learned this annual is easy to grow. We are growing them in moderately fertile clay soil. However, the plant has the reputation of being able to grow in a variety of soils ranging from poor to fertile.
The plant’s bright orange and yellow daisy like flowers are stunning. Plants grow two to six feet tall (most of our plants reached a height of four to five feet). The flowers last for a long time. In addition, dead heading will prolong their bloom well into the fall.
Our sulphur cosmos plants have been blooming for several weeks. During that time, we have seen the blossoms visited by a host of pollinators such as ruby-throated hummingbirds, eastern tiger swallowtails, common buckeyes, checkered skippers, gulf fritillaries, cloudless sulphurs, sleepy oranges, monarchs, and others. The most recent addition to the list of butterflies seen on the flowers was a giant swallowtail. This butterfly is uncommon in our neck of the woods.
If you decide to incorporate this ornamental in your garden, I would be very surprised if doesn’t please you as much as it has us.
I am fascinated by the astonishing relationships that exist between some native plants and animals. One such association links certain plants that produce fat-rich fruits and berries to migratory songbirds.
Long before the official arrival of fall, many birds like warblers, vireos, and thrushes, begin preparing for the epic fall migration during the heat of summer. One way in which they ready themselves for the long flight is by switching from predominantly eating insects and other invertebrates that are packed with protein to a of diet fruits and berries laden with fats.
This dramatic dietary change enables these migrants to store body fat using less time and effort. This is important, as this fat is the fuel needed to fuel their long migration. It seems foods rich in protein and carbohydrates yield twice as little energy as fatty foods.
Obviously, it behooves birds to quickly locate these sources of food. One way in plants that produce fruits or berries loaded with fat facilitate this endeavor is by advertising. The list of these plants includes blackgum, flowering dogwood, Virginia creeper, muscadine, magnolia, pokeweed, and many others. These plants advertise by bearing fruits and berries that are have bright red in color, have fall foliage that is bright yellow, red or orange, or display their fruits or berries on red stems.
The plants benefit from the birds widely spreading their seeds through their droppings whereas the birds are able to quickly locate food prior to and during their migration.
If you want to extend a helping hand to these special birds, incorporate as many of these plants as possible in your yard.
August is a special month for both ruby-throated hummingbirds and those of us that enjoy watching them. Throughout the entire month, the number of hummingbirds visiting our feeder swells as they voraciously feed on the nectar provided by our feeders and flowers. The reason for this increased activity is these flying jewels must quickly eat enough food to enable them to store the fat required to fuel their long journey to their winter home.
In order to accomplish this task, hummingbirds make frequent feeding forays to our feeders and as many flowers as possible. Since hummingbirds have one the highest rates of metabolism known, they expend huge amounts of energy trying to prepare for their arduous migration. Obviously, anything that makes this task more efficient greatly benefits these flying dynamos.
One way the birds would be able to streamline their feeding binge would be to possess the ability to avoid visiting flowers that harbor little or no nectar. Well, as amazing as it may seem, they can do just that. Here is how it works.
The amount of nectar produced by each nectar plant varies considerably throughout the day. A number of variables such as soil moisture and weather conditions affect it. When hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, wasps, and other nectar feeders consume nectar, it takes time for it to be replenished. This time varies considerably. For example, some flowers do so only once a day, others every half-hour, others varying amounts of time in between.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds have the ability to learn how long it takes a flower to rejuvenate its supply of energy-rich nectar. Consequently, when a rubythroat visits the zinnias, salvias, lantanas, bee balms, trumpet creepers, and the like growing in our hummingbird gardens they rapidly learn how long it takes each plant to produce a new crop of nectar. Only then will they revisit a plant it fed at earlier in the day. This eliminates the need to revisit the plant until correct amount of time has elapsed.
This astounding ability has been demonstrated by researchers such as a team of University of Edinburg biologists. Their experiments involved providing hummingbirds with two groups of artificial flowers laden with nectar. One group of flowers was refilled with nectar every ten minutes. The second group was replenished every 20 minutes. In short order, the hummers learned when each group of flowers provided them with a source of food.
Keep this in mind as you watch the hummingbirds visiting various flowers about your yard. It will help you better understand why they feed at certain nectar plants when they do. If you are like me, you will come away being even more impressed with a bird so small, ten could be mailed for the price of a first-class letter.
Northern mockingbirds are common backyard residents throughout Georgia. Unlike some of the birds, we see in our backyards, it is a permanent resident. If you regularly see or hear a mockingbirds in your yard, it is safe to say your property is located within a mockingbird’s territory. This means a mockingbird will try to keep other birds from its favorite food sources such as feeders. Currently a mockingbird is defending my suet feeder.
Consequently, the only time hairy and downy woodpeckers, cardinals, house finches, Carolina chickadees, brown headed nuthatches, tufted titmice and others an able to feed on the suet offered in a wire suet feeder is when the mockingbird is somewhere out of sight of the feeder.
The only bird that doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the mockingbird is the brown thrasher. I have never witnessed a mockingbird try to scare a brown thrasher away from a suet feeder; perhaps this because mockingbirds find thrashers too large and intimidating.
Since I enjoy watching a variety of birds feeding in my feeding area, I have tried a couple of things remedy the situation.
MOCKINGBIRD AT SUET FEEDER
For example, I purchased a suet feeder that was surrounded by hardware cloth cage. The suet feeder was positioned well away from the side of the cage. While it allowed smaller birds such as brown-headed nuthatches, titmice, chickadees, and sparrows to slip through the opening in the hardware cloth and feed, it kept larger birds such as mockingbirds, cardinals, and woodpeckers away.
My latest approach is to offer my backyard avian neighbors two suet feeders. The theory is that it is impossible for one bird to defend more than one feeder.
I began my experiment by placing another suet feeder within ten feet of the original feeder. It didn’t take long for me to realize there the second feeder was positioned too close to the original feeder. As such, the mockingbird kept other birds away from both feeders.
I have since moved the second feeder some 30 feet away. This seems to work fine, however, I now find it more difficult to watch and photograph birds visiting the second feeder. That being the case, I need to begin moving the second feeder ever closer to the first feeder. I am sure; at some point, the mockingbird will be able to defend both feeders. Then I can move it back to a location just beyond that distance.
Perhaps I do should go ahead a let the mockingbird defend a single suet feeder. Since the bird cannot be near the feeder all of the time, I can enjoy seeing other birds dine to the suet during those times the mockingbird is elsewhere. That may be best after all.
If you have come up with a great way to deal with an aggressive mockingbird trying to defend suet, mealworms, or fruit, I sure would like to know about it.
First, keep in mind white-throated sparrows spend much of their time on close to the ground deep within shrubby, overgrown areas. If your yard does not possess such a spot, chances are slim white-throated sparrows will winter there.
