I guess they're ok. My little sister in NC makes a great mourning dove stew!

 

Hey now! We are suppose to feed them, not feed on them! I must admit when the pheasants come up to the feeders I think about taking one, but the wife says NO!

 

We had a heck of a time last year. I put the boxes on steel posts and racoons crawled right up them and robbed all the nests. Now I put PVC pipe over the steel posts and they can't get up them. We have about 15 boxes we maintain, and normally get about 30 broods a year. Last year was less than 1/2 that due to sparrows and raccons. Bluebirding here in Nebraska has really been successful. Populations are way up.

I know birding sounds boring to young people, but its a great hobby to get into with the family. My wife and I are nutty about birds. It makes us feel good to know you are helping such small creatures. I guess it happens when the kids are gone! Emptynesters?

 

gotta start them young. My two boys (2 and 4) always want to help fill the feeders. We have them arranged so that we can watch them from our kitchen table. They love to watch as they are eating breakfast.

We only had three nests of bluebirds. No coon problems with the birds....only eating my tomatoes and corn .

There are lots of bluebirds here. Also, we saw our forst Bearded Grossbeak this fall....I think that's what it was (CRS)... - JKE

Oh yeah, Dove is excellent on the grill wrapped in beacon!

 

Oh!... the humanity!


It's gonna get to -10 tonight. It is amazing how such small birds can stay warm, let alone thrive and fly around.

 

You are making great lifelong memories with your brood!

I just had a thought, are you sure the birds on the feeders are not watching you and your family?

 

Make sure you use a Finch/Thistle Feeder, for the thistle. They are cheap. The finch are our favorite in winter. The finch are prettiest in the Summer though. Their colors are a lot brighter then. In the Summer it's the Hummingbirds we like most. We have 3 feeders and have to fill them every couple of days. We just use sugar water, no dye. It is really a trip sitting on the deck and watching 15 - 20 hummingbirds do battle around the feeders. It seems like every year we have more of them. I guess the young come back each year. We have a Bluebird box and a bat house as well. We also have an old barn that is home to an uncountable amount of Swallows. They are great to watch swooping down over the yard and pond eating mosquito's.

 

Geico266 -
"You are making great lifelong memories with your brood!

I just had a thought, are you sure the birds on the feeders are not watching you and your family?"

They sure do when the feeders are empty! They will hover in front of the sliding-glass door looking in as if to be saying "HEY! WHERE'S MINE?"

we only use one hummingbird feeder. I like hearing them chirp and bicker at one another. the close to your head fly byes are good too.

I'm afraid one day that someone might lose an eye.

JKE

 

First of all I'd like to clarify, I think my mom is nuts for having nothing better to do than to watch birds but....

I bought her a bird feeder last year and it seemed to work well but apparently the top was getting a little flimsy or something, also it seemed to empty itself out onto the ground quite often with wind gusts. So this year for christmas I got one that has like twice the capacity and doesn't have the open tray area on bottom like the other one did so that it won't just waste all of the seed on the ground.

I've seen some fly into our windows, and I even had one of them try to attack me a couple hundred feet away from the feeder. Once I went back in the house and got the gun out I think it changed its mind and bothered something else.

My brother has this big tree in his front yard, right over his driveway and the birds will just perch there and crap all day long. His car is always covered in bird crap, maybe they just don't like Ferds. If you just visit him for like 15 minutes you'll leave with at least one dropping on the vehicle....

 

You need to get a parrot, they are a lot of fun.

 

I haven't been at the cabin long enuff through the winter before, to maintain the bird feeder. Now that I'm there this winter, I'm glad I stocked it. I was looking out the back window at it yesterday and saw an otter bouncing along down the ctreek. Hadn't see one in a couple years. Wonder if he had been eyeballing the blacksquirrel at the feeder. He crosses the creek on an overhanging basswood to come to the feeder.

I've got some good 1x scrap wood for some bluebird boxes I've been planning myself. My neighbor has some boxes that get used every year. You have to watch those sparrows. They go in and kill'em and bust the eggs. I need to get around to finishing a wood duck box too. Anybody get hummingbirds? When I'm watering the plants around my fire pit, they like to come in and sit on the benched to bath in the spray. They also come and hover in your face if your watering the flowers they want to feed from.

 

At our house we had a male cardinal that flew into our window all the time, would do it for hours. Fighting with his reflection, I guess. He would hit the window so hard we thought he was going to break the window or his neck. The constant thumping was getting annoying so I hung a rubber snake on the window and he quit.

 

That is a great idea! THANKS! The only way I could get him to quit attacking my CTD is to move it! Maybe if I bought a Ferd he would quit also...... NOT!

 

The Ferd would probably tick him off more!

 

AN owl or hawk decoy is suppose to work for that too.