We are getting very little activity at our bird feeders this time of the year.  There is plenty of food out in the wild with everything ripening and going to seed to get ready for the winter.  So we are not attracting very many birds right now, even the squirrels are staying away.  During the winter and early spring they are usually around going after the sunflower seeds, but even they must be finding plenty of food right now.

We are continuing to fill the feeders however.   The birds we are attracting at least a little bit will remember where they can find food when it becomes scarce.

What would you like to see on our website?

We plan to add more pages to our website to offer more information about birds.  We plan to have a bird identification page that will include state birds and other common birds found in the backyard. We also plan to include a page about creating a garden to attract birds to your backyard.

We are interested in your thoughts and comments about what you would like to see on the site.  Please join our blog.

We had a couple of unusual sitings this week.  I looked out to our birdfeeders this afternoon and saw a downy woodpecker at our sunflower seed tube feeder.  This is unusual during this time of year.  They are regular visitors during the late fall, winter, and early spring when we have our suet feeders filled.  They love the suet and will also go for the sunflower seeds.  But, when the weather starts to get too warm and the suet melts and goes rancid we stop putting it out and the downys disappear for a few months.  It was a suprise to see one in August.

The other unusual siting was a young bald eagle flying just about 40 feet over my head.  While playing golf this weekend I looked up and saw this bird fly over and all of a sudden realized it was a small bald eagle.  There are not many mating pairs in this region of southern Ohio so although they are not rare they are also not abundant.  Although I have seen some occasionally on tree branches along the Ohio River this was the first time one has flown directly over me.  It was a beautiful sight.

Attracting and feeding birds has been a hobby of ours for many years.  We have lived in our current home for over 25 years and have been attracting and feeding them since we moved in as we did in our last home.  Our family cats use to be a problem attacking the birds early on, but our current ones are house cats so they are not a danger to the birds that we bring to our bird feeders.
 

Our yard is surrounded by mature trees, both evergreen and deciduous.  Also included in our landscaping are several well formed forsythia shrubs and butterfly bushes.  These provide shelter and shade to the birds that we attract and the butterfly bushes occasionally attract hummingbirds.

We use several types of feeding methods to attract birds to our backyard.  We have a squirrel proof hopper feeder and sunflower seed tube feeder.  We also use a large stump as a low platform feeder and place food on the ground.  During the winter months we also place suet feeders in several locations to continue to attract and feed birds when they most need it.  We also have a birdbath for drinking and bathing.

We live in a rural area where our backyard touches on non-developed hills.  So besides attracting birds we get our fair share of squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, opossums, and every once in a while deer.  The squirrels and chipmunks come out during the day and eat the food on the ground and stump, but can’t get into the squirrel proof bird feeders.    The millet we also place on the ground still attracts the ground feeding birds and if they get there early enough they get a share of the sunflower seeds and corn.

Even with these nuisances we enjoy attracting birds.  We like trying to identify the birds we bring to our bird feeders and on rare events we get seldom seen (in our area) migratory birds.  One hard winter we were able to attract four pairs of evening grosbeaks.  Their yellow was a very pretty sight against the snow.  This winter during a large snow storm we swept off the ground and stump and started putting food out.  We had to do it three or four times because of the storm, but before we knew it we had attracted somewhere between 60-80 birds.  We were able to identify 18 different species during this time, two never before at our feeders, one type migratory and one type that usually stays in marshes (none of which are nearby).  We didn’t mind the extra work or extra seed because is was a fun thing to do during a snowy winter day.