Yesterday, Sassy Sue and I filled the Duncraft bird feeder with black oil sunflower seeds and added new corn to the squirrel feeder. We also scattered seeds in the front of the house, in the rocky area sheltered from snow and rain.
I heard about a storm coming, but our little corner of Arkansas usually misses the worst storms, which go north into Missouri or south toward Little Rock and Fort Smith. Nevertheless, we had about 3 inches of snow on the ground this morning and another 3 on the way, the Bella Vista equivalent of a blizzard. We cannot leave the house today, but I imagine salt and sun will do the job Friday and Saturday.
The birds were already accustomed to our feeding areas, which include two spots for suet. This morning the birds were up before the sun, getting their morning Jo from the sunflower seeds and suet. Cardinals flock together in early spring because they have not chosen a mate and established their homesteads yet. We have 3 or 4 males cardinals happily eating from the same feeder.
The seed cost is about $1 per week. The suet cost is pennies per week. I can buy a basket/suet combination for $2, and that lasts for months. Refills are about $1, with interesting variations aimed at the buyer.
I will consider roasted mealy worms in the future. That is a blue bird favorite. They enjoy them live most of all, but that is not on the agenda.
Gardeners should start planning natural settings for promoting a bird-filled yard. Seedy flowers to consider planting are:
1. Sunflowers.
2. Cosmos.
3. Zinnias.
4. Safflower.
Birds love trashy, leafy, branch-littered areas for nesting and feeding. Trashy does not mean bags of garbage, but dead leaves, long grass, weeds and herbs. Leaves at the base of bushes will help feed the bushes via the earthworms, and the dead organic material will attract creatures for the birds to eat.
Blue jays and cardinals love bushes, and evergreens are popular with most species. Birds want a safe place to watch the feeder and to eat. A bird swing is easy to make and hang. I will put up a separate post on that project.
---
Brian G. Heyer has left a new comment on your post "Snowed In, With the Birds":
I'd also suggest purple coneflower (echinacea). The goldfinches flock to them for weeks to pick apart the seed heads. Don't plant near a path, as the seed heads are annoyingly stiff and prickly, but created perfectly for nervous finches.
4 comments:
I know that you are very oriented towards good stewardship of the land and so I am writing to you about salt usage in the winter. Don't use salt to melt ice. It is bad for the environment. Shovel the snow and broadcast sand over the slippery areas.
Three inches of snow? I'd settle for that. we have over 50" in Minnesota. The towns here don't know where to dump it. It can't be dumped into rivers and lakes because there us too much salt and junk in it from snow removal procedures.
I use almost no salt. Mostly I shovel. However, our driveway is downward sloping, so I need to back out of it safely. When we come home, I do not want the Icha-boat taking out the attached garage. The previous resident warned me about returning on a snowy day.
Because we are so hilly in Bella Vista(Little Switzerland), the ravines so deep and the roads so narrow, we will stay in today.
I'd also suggest purple coneflower (echinacea). The goldfinches flock to them for weeks to pick apart the seed heads. Don't plant near a path, as the seed heads are annoyingly stiff and prickly, but created perfectly for nervous finches.
Coneflowers make for good bushes for birds during the winter. Our coneflowers are all standing, though they've been thoroughly de-seeded by the goldfinches long ago. They withstood that 60mph windstorm that came down from the Canada and hit the entire Midwest--the one in which the Notre Dame guy died.
Post a Comment