I am getting new followers on Twitter, because of the bird posts. That seems appropriate, to tweet them.
One bird-watcher informed me that I have an unusual number of birds, thanks to my location. That is true. The ideal location is on the edge of the woods, with a large grassy area, and water nearby.
Parents who want to teach Creation have an ideal faculty available, since birds are so willing to help.
Birds share the same area, but not always with each other. Some birds flock and feed together, such as starlings and sparrows.
Others jealously guard their territory, with the males staking their individual zones with their songs. Male cardinals are often caught challenging their own reflections in a mirror, anxious that another male is moving in on their mates.
Cardinals are fun because the male and female come to the feeder together and have different, color-coordinated outfits. The male cardinal eyeballs me while while he feeds. He eats one safflower seed after another.
Chickadees land, grab one seed, take off to eat it elsewhere and come back. There are plenty of chickadees around. They are often called aerial acrobats for their flying ability.
Downy and hairy woodpeckers feed at the suet. Bird identification is a great way to learn about Creation. Many websites have bird song files, too, so we can associate the song with the bird.
I nailed orange and apple halves to the window sill near the feeder. They should attract fruit loving birds. Some people use jelly.
The house is landscaped with many bushes, including holly. The holly bushes are beautiful but painfully pointed. Birds seem to love thorny plants.
Birds often live at one level and feed at another level. Bushes, trees, and weedy ground are all attractive to birds, depending on the species. Multiple feeding zones favor a great number of birds to watch.
I always feed birds at the closest window possible. At first they fly away a lot. Later they get used to a human face a few inches away. Given enough food on a cold or snowy day, plus remaining still, birds will put on a better show than anything Disney can imagine.
That includes water, when possible. Watching birds take a bath illustrates even more behavior. In the summer, a flock of birds will take dust baths. That is interesting.
The funniest was seeing them line up two-by-two and take turns bathing, during a bitter winter in Midland. Of course, I was using a bird bath warmer. A heated pet watering dish is probably more efficient. I often added a gallon of water a day in the winter, to keep up with the demands at the avian spa. Naturally, people thought I was odd for heating a bird bath in the winter. I thought they were rather slow for skipping an inexpensive form of entertainment. That was in a town where bird-feeding was considered a normal hobby.
In Phoenix it was considered completely weird to feed birds. Students laughed at me for growing shelter and food for birds. I said, "You just gave a presentation on being one with nature. You talk it. I live it." They even passed out little bamboo plants, because of the Buddhism talk. I said, "I grow this at home. It's 15 feet tall." More laughter followed.
Simply leaving branches on the ground will provide a welcome shelter for some birds. When we put pruned branches near the street in Midland, the birds rested there and sang away until the limbs were taken away by the city. I kept Christmas trees, from neighbors, in the snow, for extra shelter.
Human reason tells us that God might have reduced His product line, because so many birds overlap one another in what they do (seed-eating, bug-eating, scavengers, predators). One bug specialist concluded after a lifetime studying insects, "God seems overly fond of beetles."
Creation shows us how many different ways God can arrange things, often for our exclusive benefit. The cheerful songs of birds will always inspire people. The colder and more bitter the weather, the more we enjoy passing along some food to show our thanks and enjoy even more displays of color, song, and antics.
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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Teach Creation with Birds":
My heated pet bowl allows birds to drink water, but I think the water is kept at too chilly a temperature for them to bathe much. You don't see any steam coming off it as though it were a hot tub for birds. That's exactly how I want it, tho, since the low temperature doesn't promote algae or bacterial growth, and I don't want to refill it but once a week. Yesterday I put clean snow in it to melt and fill it up. One link (below) talks about a guy refilling his 2 or 3 times per day, and emptying it at night. I'm not THAT much of a bird lover. He must have a hot tub for birds.
The timer switch means it uses less electricity, working only during daylight. It got so cold lately I had to have it on all day and not just half hour on, half hour off. Unsurprisingly, the same birds that drank during the summer drink during the winter--if they stick around all winter, that is.
Below is a link to a thermostat outlet I found. It turns on at 35F or below, and off at 37F and above.
That will save electricity, too, since I'm not about to unplug it and plug it in again every change in weather. It does cost $20 at Farm and Fleet, tho (brick and mortar or online). The Thermocube doesn't turn off until it's 45F, and that wastes electricity.
At church today I talked to an older gentlemen, and he said that he went through a number of heated bird baths but doesn't have one anymore. I think that's because the older bird baths were high wattage and not thermostatically controlled or timed, so often they burned out after just a few seasons. In fact, many bird baths are that way now--bird hot tubs! The reason is they want the birds to actually bathe and not just take a drink.
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Allied Precision TCO35 Temperature Controled Outlet
http://www.google.com/search?q=Allied+Precision+TCO35+Temperature+Controled+Outlet&tbs=shop:1&aq=f
Switches On At 33 Degrees And Switches Off When Temperatures Rise Above
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http://www.a-home-for-wild-birds.com/bird-bath-heater.html
I never realized how popular a heated bird bath could be until I tried one for the first time. On the coldest days we will see as many as 10or 15 wild birds at one time. But during a stretch of four or five cold days is when my bird bath is the busiest. During those time I will often have to fill the bird bath two or three times per day....Birds will only visit your bird bath during daylight hours. I usually empty my bird bath at dusk and refill it just after daybreak. This helps to reduce the cost of operating my bird bath heater.
