Helpful Books on Birds

Here's a great list of some really helpful books on birds. Check them out!!!!

Discouraging Unwanted Critters

Squirrels

Although it can be fun to watch a persistent squirrel finagle its way to your bird food, it's less amusing if they eat up all your seeds, chew holes in your feeders, and discourage your feeder birds from visiting. Squirrels can leap several feet horizontally or from above onto your feeder. Position your feeders so that they are at least 10 feet away from jumping-off points.

One way to outwit these furry-tailed rodents is to distract them by feeding them peanuts or dried ears of corn in a location some distance from your feeders. But this tactic might not work for long. You can also try "squirrel-proof" bird feeders.
Squirrel baffles are a good bet. These are barriers, often shaped like an inverted bowl, that are placed between squirrels and feeders. Usually when a squirrel lands on a baffle, it simply slides off. On pole-mounted feeders, baffles should be fixed in place under the feeder. On hanging feeders, a tilting baffle—at least 18 inches in diameter—should be installed above the feeder. As an alternative to commercially-made plastic baffles, bird watchers have used old vinyl records, plastic salad bowls, two-liter soda bottles, even stove pipes.

If your feeder is hung from a horizontal line, another anti-squirrel tactic is to thread the line through several lengths of plastic tubing, end to end; the tubing should spin when a squirrel tries to walk on it. Alternatively, some people have tried suspending feeders on a three- to four-foot length of monofilament fishing line instead of wire—it's too thin for squirrels to climb on.

Try a hopper-style feeder specifically designed to deter squirrels. Most use a spring-loaded or counter-weighted gate that closes off access to the seed ports under the squirrel's weight. This weight adjustment can be changed to selectively exclude larger, undesirable birds as well.

Yet another way to keep squirrels from your birdseed is a "squirrel spooker." As the squirrel climbs up a feeder pole to reach your feeder, it climbs over a moveable sleeve. Because of the squirrel's added weight, the sleeve slips down or spins around, dumping the surprised squirrel onto the ground. Once the squirrel has let go, the sleeve automatically moves back into place.

If you can't dissuade your squirrels from chewing your feeders to get at the seeds inside, consider buying a feeder made of a durable material like Lexan. Also there are feeders available with metal-reinforced seed ports. Some of these come with guarantees against destruction by squirrels.

House Cats

Cats are the most numerous pets in North America. Unfortunately they kill millions of birds each year. Ground-feeding and ground-nesting birds and fledglings are at greatest risk. Feeder birds are also easy prey. The only real way to keep your cat from eating your birds is to keep kitty inside.

Rats

Rats and other pest rodents are attracted to seeds droppped beneath feeders. Once a population is established, it can be very difficult to discourage. The first step is to discontinue feeding for a couple of weeks to encourage the rodent population to disperse. Next, consider ways to feed without any waste falling to the ground. There are several feeders available that will catch dropped seeds, but most of the catch trays aren't big enough to really do the job. You may want to look into constructing a large catch tray to place (off the ground) or hang under your feeders that you can clean or remove each night. The key is to prevent rodents from getting to the seed. It's important to clean any catch tray that you construct, because bird droppings contaminated with Salmonella bacteria may survive on the catch tray and spread disease among your birds.

Bears

Imagine waking up one night and seeing a bear pulling your feeder down to steal a midnight snack! Wildlife agencies from the following states issue precautions about feeding birds in areas with bears: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming.

Here are some of their suggestions:

• Don't feed birds during months when bears are most active—late March through November.
• Bring all of your feeders in at night.
• Hang feeders 10 feet above ground and 6 feet away from tree trunks.
• Don't leave spilled birdseed lying on the ground.
• Keep your birdseed supply indoors.
• Don't hang your bird feeder from your front porch.
• If you do have a bear in your yard, don't approach it.

Other Mammals

If bears, raccoons, deer, or moose become a nuisance the best tactic is to make your feeders inaccessible with fencing. If that approach is impractical, you'll probably have to take down your feeders temporarily. Like hawks, mammals will find new foraging places. If your mammalian visitors appear only at night, take in your feeders at dusk.

To view a great selection of bird feeders, click HERE.

Feeder Pests and Predators

Undesirable Birds

Some people welcome any bird regardless of its size or appetite. But others get frustrated when ravenous flocks of grackles, crows, pigeons, or starlings overrun their feeders.

To discourage these larger, nuisance birds, manufacturers have come up with various creative feeder designs. Try incorporating their principles into your homemade feeders if you wish.

Use feeders that are made for smaller birds, such as tube feeders with short perches but no catch basins on which large birds may perch. Try tube feeders that have wire cages around the tubes. Finches and small birds can get through to the feeding ports but large birds are excluded. If House Finches take over your thistle feeder, try one with ports below, rather than above, the perches—only birds that can feed upside down, such as goldfinches, will be able to eat there.

If starlings are gobbling down your suet, offer it in a container open only at the bottom, requiring birds to feed hanging upside down. Woodpeckers, chickadees, and nuthatches do this naturally, but starlings cannot.

Avoid platform trays and don't spread food on the ground, where the larger aggressive species can access it. Don't offer seed mixes with corn, millet, or milo, which grackles and pigeons enjoy.

Certain types of squirrel-proof feeders also can keep out large birds—those that use a spring-loaded or counter-weighted gate that closes off access to the seed ports under the squirrel's weight. This weight adjustment can be altered to selectively exclude larger, undesirable birds.

Predatory Birds

If you feed wild birds, at some point you can expect visit from a hawk, usually a Sharp-shinned Hawk or a Cooper's Hawk. At first you'll probably welcome the close-up view. But what if your hawk stays around and scares your feeder birds away, or—even worse—eats them? The best solution is to take your feeders down for a few days. The hawk will get hungry and move on in search of alternate prey.

Hummingbirds with Bad Manners

Hummingbirds are quite territorial and can be aggressive toward each other near food supplies. You may hang out a multiple-perch feeder expecting to attract many hummingbirds, but then a single male dominates it, defending his food supply with such vengeance that the others cannot feed.

If this happens, try a feeder that has large plastic flowers disguising each feeding port. These may block the dominant hummingbird's view when he comes to feed. Another solution is to place several feeders in different parts of your yard, or separated by vegetation or other barriers, so that the domineering bird can only see one or two at a time.

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Location of Your Garden Bird Feeder

Location, location, location...

Set up your FEEDER in a quiet place where it is easy to see and convenient to refill. The feeder should be close to natural shelter (cover) such as trees or shrubs, which offer refuge to birds as they wait their turn to feed. Evergreens are ideal—their thick foliage buffers winter winds and offers year-round hiding places from predators.

Be careful not to locate your feeder too close to cover, though. Nearby branches can provide good jumping-off points for seed-hungry squirrels and bird-hungry cats. A distance of about 10 feet seems to be a good compromise, but try experimenting. You can provide resting and escape cover for ground-dwelling birds such as Song Sparrows, by placing loosely-stacked brush piles near your FEEDERS.

Beware of placing your feeder near windows; birds may collide with them. Ornithologists estimate that window strikes kill millions of birds each year.

Hummingbird feeders:

If you're putting out a hummingbird feeder, make sure it's protected from the wind; a swaying feeder may spill sugar solution. Also, try putting the feeder in the shade because sugar solution spoils quickly in the sun.

To attract hummingbirds, tie red ribbons around the feeder so they flutter in the breeze.

No birds?

At first you may have no feeder visitors. Be patient—the local birds first have to discover there's free lunch in the neighborhood! As with any new restaurant, you may need to do a little advertising to get some clients—if no birds visit your seed feeder within a few days of setting it up, try sprinkling seeds on the ground nearby to make the feeder more obvious. If birds congregate nearby but just don't come to your feeder, place a feed pile between the favored area and the feeder. As the birds start to use the feed pile, move it closer and closer to your feeder.

If the seed in the feeder is blowing out or getting wet, your birds are probably getting the same treatment. Try moving the feeder to a calmer, more sheltered spot.

Selecting the Right Type of Bird Food

With such a variety of bird foods on the market it's often hard to choose which is best. Listed below are the various types of food and the birds that you can attract.

To attract a specific bird that is native to your area, you will need a certain type of feeder and food.

Use the chart below to determine what type of birds you will attract based on your feeder and food type.

Bird Type	Feeder Type	Food Type
Bluebirds	Fruit feeder Platform feeder Suet cake feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats Suet cake
Cardinals	Hopper feeder Tube feeder Platform feeder	Black oil sunflower seed Peanuts
Cedar Waxwings	Fruit feeder Platform feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats
Chickadees	Tube feeder Suet cake feeder Platform feeder	Black oil sunflower seed Suet cake Thistle seed Peanuts
Doves	Platform feeder Tube feeder	Cracked corn Millet seed Peanuts
Finches	Hopper feeder Tube feeder Suet cake feeder Platform feeder	Black oil sunflower seed Suet cake Thistle seed Peanuts
Hummingbirds	Nectar feeder	Nectar
Jays	Fruit feeder Platform feeder Suet cake feeder Tube feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats Cracked corn Suet cake Peanuts
Mockingbirds	Fruit feeder Platform feeder Suet cake feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats Suet cake
Nuthatches	Tube feeder	Black oil sunflower seed
Orioles	Fruit feeder Platform feeder Nectar feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats Nectar
Redpolls	Tube feeder	Black oil sunflower seed
Siskins	Tube feeder Platform feeder	Black oil sunflower seed Thistle seed
Sparrows of various types	Hopper feeder Tube feeder Platform feeder	Black oil sunflower seed Cracked corn Millet seed Thistle seed Peanuts
Starlings	Platform feeder Tube feeder	Cracked corn Millet seed Peanuts
Tanagers	Fruit feeder Platform feeder Nectar feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats Nectar
Titmice	Tube feeder Suet cake feeder Platform feeder	Black oil sunflower seed Suet cake Peanuts
Woodpeckers	Fruit feeder Platform feeder Suet cake feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats Suet cake Black oil sunflower seed
Wrens	Suet cake feeder	Suet cake
Yellow-breasted Chats	Fruit feeder Platform feeder	Orange, apple or nut treats

Bird Feeder Options

Selecting the right feeder

The easiest way to attract birds to your yard is to put up a bird feeder. There are many different ones on the market today. Most are made for seeds, but there are also specialty feeders for certain foods, such as sugar solution for hummingbirds, suet, or peanuts. Which should you choose? The answer depends on the kinds of birds you want to attract.

Here are the major feeder types and their benefits and shortcomings. Keep in mind that each style of feeder comes in a variety of models and sizes. Quality varies too—the ideal bird feeder is sturdy enough to withstand winter weather, tight enough to keep seeds dry, large enough to avoid constant refilling, and easy to assemble and clean. Plastic or metal feeders usually beat wooden ones in meeting all these requirements.

If you want to attract the greatest variety of birds to your yard, you'll want to use several different feeder types offering a variety of foods. Alternatively, you may want to attract certain bird species, but dissuade others. The following information will help you make the correct feeder choice.

Tray or Platform Feeder:

Any flat, raised surface onto which bird food is spread.

Trays attract most species of feeder birds, but they offer no protection against squirrels, chipmunks, rain, or snow. Plus the seed can quickly become soiled by droppings because birds stand right on top of it. Tray feeders placed near the ground are most likely to attract ground-feeding birds such as juncos, doves, jays, blackbirds, and sparrows. Tray feeders work well mounted on deck railings, posts, or stumps, and also can be suspended. Some models have a roof to provide some protection from the weather. Be sure your tray feeders have plenty of drainage holes.

Hopper or House Feeder:

Platform with walls and a roof, forming an enclosed "hopper."

This type protects seeds fairly well against the weather, but less well against squirrels. It also keeps seed cleaner. Hopper feeders are attractive to most feeder birds, including finches, jays, cardinals, buntings, grosbeaks, sparrows, chickadees, and titmice. Most hoppers hold a good quantity of seed. Few are weatherproof, however, so the food may get wet and moldy if it sits for a few days. Hopper feeders can be mounted on a pole or suspended.

Window Feeder:

Usually made of clear plastic and suction-cupped to a window.

This type of feeder attracts finches, sparrows, chickadees, and titmice, allowing close-up views of the birds as they come to feed. Be aware, though, that the birds feed while standing on a pile of seeds inside the feeder, so the food risks becoming soiled.

Tube Feeder:

Hollow cylinder, usually of clear plastic, with multiple feeding ports and perches.

Tube feeders keep seed fairly clean and dry, and if they have metal feeding ports they are somewhat squirrel resistant. The birds attracted depend on the size of the perches under the feeding ports: short perches accomodate small birds such as sparrows, grosbeaks, chickadees, titmice, and finches but exclude larger birds such as grackles and jays. Styles with perches above the feeding ports are designed for seed-eating birds that like to feed hanging upside down such as goldfinches, while dissuading others.

Thistle Feeder:

Special tube feeder designed with extra-small openings to dispense tiny thistle seeds.

Thistle is also known as nyjer or niger. These feeders attract a variety of small songbirds, especially finches and redpolls. Thistle "socks"—fine-mesh bags to which birds cling to extract the seeds—are also available.

Suet Feeder:

Wire-mesh cage or plastic-mesh bag, such as an onion bag, which holds suet or suet mixture.

This type of feeder can be nailed or tied to a tree trunk. It can also be suspended. Suet can also be smeared into knotholes.

Suet feeders attract a variety of woodpeckers and nuthatches, as well as chickadees, titmice, jays, and starlings. Suet cages that are open only at the bottom are starling-proof; they force birds to hang upside down while feeding, something starlings find difficult.

Hummingbird Feeder:

A container to hold artificial nectar or sugar solution; may be bottle or saucer style.

The bottle or tube type of hummingbird feeder is usually made of glass or plastic, often with red plastic flowers and bee-guards (little plastic screens that keep insects away from the sugar solution) on the feeding ports. Saucer types are usually plastic.

Make sure the feeder is easy to take apart and clean, because it should be washed frequently. For example, the fill hole should be large enough for you to reach in while cleaning.

Saucer-shaped hummingbird feeders have feeding ports in the top, making them bee-and wasp-proof.

Saucer feeders are better than bottle feeders in direct sunlight. Bottle feeders tend to leak in the sun—air trapped in the top of the bottle expands as it warms and pushes the nectar out. In fact, you should avoid locating your hummingbird feeder in direct sun—it causes the sugar solution to spoil rapidly.

To view a variety of feeders, click HERE.

Feeding Wild Birds

If you have a bird feeder in your backyard, you're in good company. Bird watching is becoming one of America's fastest-growing hobbies, and surveys show that nearly half the households in the United States provide food for wild birds.

The appeal is obvious—by feeding birds we bring them close so we can see them more easily. Their colorful, lively company brightens up our lives, especially through the dreary days of winter.

Setting up a garden bird feeder can make birds' lives easier, too. In much of North America, winter is a difficult time for birds. Finding food can be especially challenging during periods of extreme cold.

What should you serve your bird visitors for dinner? And how should you serve it? The shelves of supermarkets, home and garden stores, and speciality bird feeding stores are stocked with bags, buckets, and cakes of many food types, as well as numerous different feeders. You may find the task of selecting the best foods and feeders a bit intimidating. But don't worry. Through these posts, I'll describe the basic feeder types, their pluses and minuses, and the types of birds they attract. I'll also help you choose foods that the birds you want to attract enjoy the most. You'll find out where in your yard to position your feeder, and how to look after it, for the health and safety of your birds. Finally I will offer suggestions about dealing with unwanted feeder visitors.
To see a wide selection of bird feeders and other garden accessories, click HERE.