Feeding Birds

This was all started by my Mom. Months ago I dumped the last of the peanuts into my homemade peanut feeders, and I left them. Last week Mom started complaining about the woodpeckers that kept landing on the feeders, wandering around then looking put out and flying away. I said I was out of peanuts. Three days ago someone bought more peanuts. I sucked it up opened up the gnarly feeders and dumped out the leftovers, refilled with new, and the woodpeckers showed up within hours.

A pair with three babies showed up and have been by hourly. A red bellied woodpecker with fledgling in tow shows up several times a day as well. The feeders had been on various hooks around the driveway, but I got tired of the squirrel trying to gnaw through the feeders. Since the big trees are gone I strung a wire across the driveway from the porch to a convenient pole. Following this idea I strung cut pvc pipe on the ends of the wire and now I just have to wait for the squirrel to try again. If it doesn't work I'll swap out the wire I have (free) with a thinner wire as recommended here.

Daily Photo - Blue Jay 3

Sadly enough his face is not in focus, rather his shoulder feathers are nicely focused.

Daily Photo - Blue Jay

I'm getting better.

It's Been Snowing for 3 DAYS

And I spent today very slowly leading the ground feeding birds from far out in the backyard to my back door, since I couldn't take the camera out while it was snowing. I got them to the backdoor by dusk. Here's hoping they come back tomorrow, even though it is supposed to stop snowing. The blue jays are extremely skittish about the idea, but do eventually get all the peanuts I put out, mostly whenever I get distracted. The above pics have a bit of a glow about the birds. I'm having issues compensating enough for the snow. I might have to try my flash tomorrow if it doesn't brighten up a bit. And for contrast. More fun with my zoom lens that freaking refuses to focus outside but seems to love flash work.

Daily Photo - Downy Woodpecker

The birds are finally warming to the moved/new bird feeders.

Back End of a Chickadee

I'm trying to get closer but with tiny birds it isn't working out great. The blue jays haven't appeared interested in my peanuts yet either. I'm trying to convince them that me sitting a few feet away is no big deal.

Tufted Titmouse likely Song Sparrow

Daily Photo - It Came Back...

Red-bellied Woodpecker on my new Peanut Butter Feeding log. He got chased off rather quick, but at least he showed up.

Peanut Wire Bird Feeder - Design

I made a plan for the Sunflower Seed / Peanut Tube Feeders I've been making. It should be printable if you click on it to enlarge it to full size. Note: I'm unsure why but make sure when you print you use print preview and set scale to 50% otherwise it seems to try to print at screen resolution which makes it 3 pages long, and cuts off the bottom and right side. They can be filled with Whole Peanuts, Shelled Peanuts or Sunflower Seeds. For whole peanuts you could likely change the spacing to 1/2" wire. If you want to post it somewhere please LINK BACK TO ME and tell me where it's going up.

Daily Photo - Last Two For Now

PVC Pipe Tube Feeder - This is my least favorite one. It is loosely based on several versions I found online, and in one book. The tube is 2 in PVC, I used two PVC caps for the top and bottom. The bottom one is screwed on, while the top just slides on. The holes are 1" in diameter and stuck in them is a 1/2" PVC coupler to keep the seed from falling out. The coupler had 1/4 of it removed so there would be a hole, and you had to squeeze it to get it into the holes. I used 1/4" oak dowels for the perches. Improvements on my next one would be using a larger tube and letting the couplers stick out some to deter water a little more. Upside Down Suet Feeder - The easiest to make. I think the top was 1" x 8", the sides are 1" x 3". I used some of the screen I have from the sunflower and peanut feeders for the bottom, so it is 1/4" mesh. The top slides up the wire on the sides for feeding. I wanted to fit two suet cakes in there, so made it about 11" long (12.5" for the top) by the width of the wood I was using.

Daily Photo - Not the Last Birdfeeder

Sorry, I have at least two more after this. This one is exactly the same as the peanut one from a few days ago. They work nicely for sunflower seeds too. I'm finding the bottom rather hard to attach, and it might be easier if it was replaced with the same fittings as the top, but I don't really need a feeder that opens on both sides. It might be an easy way to attach a seed tray though to catch anything that falls out. I think I'll be looking into it before I make my last one (I have fittings already for one more). I have had visitors to my other three feeders. A wren hung out on the peanut feeder though the woodpeckers haven't found it yet. A nuthatch liked the droll yankees copy feeder and I think a squirrel discovered the peanut butter. I have a tube feeder made from PVC and an upside down suet feeder to still post.

Two More Feeders

First one was the easiest. We have a huge pile of rotting maple logs, and I borrowed this one. I drilled a bunch of 1/2" or so deep holes with a 1 1/2" spade bit and filled them with peanut butter. A $.69 holds it up. No idea yet if it will actually attract anything but the dogs. You can also fill the holes with suet by jamming it in as small blocks. I didn't have any suet handy. This one I haven't seen a design for anywhere. I'm trying to copy those droll yankees feeders, the ones with a built -in squirrel baffle on top and a dish, that you can raise and lower to allow different sized bids into it. Looking at the above, I think I have to lower it a bit. I used a slightly broken squirrel baffle I already had, a 1/4" threaded rod (it started out at 24" but I chopped it), a puppy feeding dish made of galvanized steel? and a turnbuckle with one 1/4" side for the hanger. I used assorted nuts, washers and locking washers to keep it together. There are extra holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. It was $9 for everything but the squirrel baffle, which I think was $10 bucks when I bought it a few years ago. It's not as pretty as the feeder I based it on but it should be functional.

Daily Photo - Another DIY Peanut Bird Feeder

It's main components are 1/4" hardware cloth and some PVC fittings. I used zip ties all up the side to hold the hardware cloth together and to attach the caps. The bottom is just a 2" cap, while the top is a slip coupling with female threading and a male threaded cap to make for easy filling. I've found designs for these using wood on the end caps and that just doesn't seem permanent enough (I also can't cut a nice circle very well.) The wire was $9 for a 5 foot long 24" high roll, the PVC was $4 and a pack of zip ties was $4. The zip ties and the hardware cloth can be used to make at least 6 more feeders, though I'd need more end caps. I might try to figure out a way to attach the wire together with metal as well to make it more squirrel proof. I have 3 other feeder attempts to finish tomorrow. I hope the squirrels will at least wait a week to chew out the zip ties. Edit: To make the tube you need 8 inches of wire, if you want to overlap it 1/2", to make construction easier. 8 inches is 32 squares long.

Bird Feeding

So this week as I got in my car to head for work I noticed that the woodpecker on the peanut feeder was not the one I normally see. I made myself a little late to work trying to photograph this one. It's a red-bellied woodpecker which I don't remember ever seeing before. It chased off one of the resident downy woodpeckers. Seeing that one bird made me rethink my bird feeding. I've been lazy and only last week refilled the two feeders that survived the summer intact, my platform feeder and an in-shell peanut feeder for the woodpeckers. The gears in my head made me spit this sketch out after thinking on it during the drive to work. My goal is for it to be not permanently anchored to the ground, far enough from trees to keep most of the squirrels off, and have natural branches attached tor some better photos. The above led me back to a library, and the only book I found was talking about making a bird feeder out of PVC pipe. I ended up going to Home Depot for materials (and to price out wood for the stand) and came home with some other stuff. I'm kind of obsessed with platform feeders, but the one I made just isn't big enough. I also didn't really like using window screen, even though the squirrels haven't ripped through it like I keep fearing. I came home with a 24" x 12" black aluminum decorative screen, a 6 foot piece of 1" x 2" pine, and a box of eye hooks. (I already had the screws for this, but you'd need 8 - #6 1 1/4" wood screws and 12- 3/4" wood screws to do what I outline below.) This was in addition to a PVC pipe set, which I may finish tomorrow, or Saturday. Supplies: 1 - 24" x 12" screen piece, stiff aluminum from door section of HD used here. (It was called decorative sheet metal actually) 1 - 6ft length of 1" x 2" pine board (cut to make a box fitting the size of the screen) 4 - eye hooks 8 - #6 1 1/4" wood screws 12 - #8 3/4" wood screws (varies due to holes in screen)

Close-up of the screen pattern I picked, which I think will keep most seed from falling through, but drain well.

With box assembled.

Box attached to screen.

Hopefully tomorrow I might have a shot of it in use, I finished it right around sunset, so no good lighting, or birds. After I finish the PVC tube feeder I'm going to try to make a very tall peanut feeder.

On Bird Cages

I used to work in a pet store. I'll admit that's where some of the early critters came from. Our store policy had what I still find to be a very stupid line about birds. If a customer asked,"How big does a bird's cage have to be?" The answer was "big enough that it's wings don't touch the sides when spread." My answer which was deemed incorrect was what kind of bird? In my mind when I think bird I instantly think of those horrible small finch cages we used to sell, maybe 12" wide. According to store policy that was a fine finchcage. I always thought of it as slow torture for a bird set up to fly everywhere. That said I have a cockatiel named Max. Someone dumped it at that store going on 5 years ago. She was hand tame and friendly and came with a cage maybe 18" wide. I've since upgraded her twice. She now lives in a 36" by 24" by 30" flight cage. Technically it is a flight cage for smaller birds, but she hasn't complained about the space. So far I haven't experienced any negative behaviors even though I don't get her out of the cage as often as I should. I always feel guilty about not getting her out. A few months ago I was at an acquaintance's house and they had two unfriendly cockatiels. Both were in cages that when spread their wings would just fit. They wouldn't be able to flap them, but technically those cages were considered big enough. I suddenly stopped feeling guilty about my cockatiel. No, she doesn't get out as often as I'd like, but she has plenty of space to crawl around, I don't clip her wings and when she does get out she is still as nice as can be.

Bird Feeders

I've been feeding birds for a very long time. But I've always been cheap about it. I hate how much nice bird feeders cost, and always tried to get by with the cheap ones. I've always wanted a platform feeder, mostly to keep the larger birds off my other feeders, where they just make a mess. I really love blue jays, but on smaller feeders they just terrorize the other birds. Last time I caught myself staring at that kind of feeder my brain pointed out it's 4 pieces of 1/2 with some screen tacked on the bottom, and some eye screws to hang it with. Hence this was made out of scraps in my house. I expect the squirrels to chew through the screen at any time. Until recently I couldn't figure out how to get good pictures of birds in the yard, but not obviously on the bird feeders. I picked up another Digital Wildlife Photography book at the library, and the author had put photogenic landing spots around his feeders, for the birds who were waiting for an open feeder to perch on. You just had to focus on the perch and wait. Now the only problem is finding some pretty "natural" perches, that the dog won't destroy.