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| Norma Boeckler painted this robin, the blue bird, and the cardinals. |
Rather than buy high-priced bird food from the specialty stores, I grow food for the birds, provide shelter for their families, and multiply the places where they can drink, bathe, and preen.
Whether we leave by the back door or front, birds on the ground take flight and land nearby, waiting for their next chance. Our birds population has grown with the gardens in the front and back, the acreage devoted to mulch and earthworms.
We improved the rose garden by putting a layer of newspaper and mulch on the grassy weeds that wormed their way through. The garden in the back was enlarged with newspaper and mulch too. The result in both places is the scattering of newsprint and mulch. I am not sure if it is more for nesting material or food - or both.
A used nest fell to the ground. It was solid with mud and strawy building material, with a garnish of gold foil. I can imagine other birds saying, "Why can't we have gold on our nest, like Bill and Rosemary's?" I left the gold in the grass to be used again.
Newsprint would be handy for nesting materials, but the soil life under the newspaper would be delicious for supper. I water on the dry days, so decomposition increases and the soil population zooms.
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| Grossbeak |
Grossbeaks are well named. Their powerful beaks mean they are experts at cracking nuts and hard seeds.
I missed the conference where they decided who would eat seeds, who would dive for fish, and who would specialize in insects. Even more complicated in God's Creation is their division of the food in each plot of land. They do not like competition, so one yard will have a single pair of cardinals, a single pair of robins, etc.
Except some decided to work as flocks, so entire flocks of starlings, sparrows, and cedar waxwings will land together, eat together, and fly off together. That takes a lot of planning.
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| Sparrow |
Mao drove off the sparrows - or at least his slaves did - and famine followed. Birds are the best helpers in the garden.
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| Starling |
Starlings are beautiful, intelligent, and ferocious in eating insects and weed seeds. Why do people despise them? They are common - and they are pigs at the feeder. But we could never invent such a creature for doing good in our gardens. They are the only bird I have seen strolling through the garden to eliminate insects. They think they are just eating, but they are balancing nature.
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| Black-capped chickadee. |
Chickadees are called the acrobats of the yard. They are exceptionally friendly to those who feed them. A cardinal cracks sunflower seeds in his powerful beak, but a chickadee holds the seed with his feet and hammers it open with his pointed beak.
Who decided to divide those tasks?
The Bird Spa
We go to a dental spa, where the dentist has changed the dental experience to make it more relaxing for the patients. They give us massages, bake fresh cookies, and treat us patients to the best care. Patients flock to them from all over, and come back to remain under their care.
People laugh at my concept of a spa for birds, but my yard is especially popular with them because of the attention I pay to their needs.
For the dry summer I am giving the birds a host of stations for their water needs. Every watering station has one to five shallow bird baths positioned to catch the fresh water from the normal watering chores. When the new dishes arrive, I will have about 12 pans catching water naturally, one from the AC condensate drain, the rest from soaker hoses.
If you look on Amazon, a bird bath starts at $30 and increases rapidly in price, because it is called a bird bath. However, a shallow dish costs $1 to $5 because of its humble name. They look almost the same and hold water in the same way. Birds want the safety of shallow water and enjoy fresh water. They do not care what the dishes cost.
I will probably get a birdbath heater for the winter, because birds need melted water all winter long. In Midland the birds lined up for my heated birdbath, two by two, and took turns splashing in that water. Everyone who got to see the line for the public bath enjoyed the sight.
Mulch and compost will also help feed them naturally during the winter, with an ample supply of creatures still at work. I will part with money for seed and suet, but the yard will provide most of the food, a wide variety of shelter, and clean water.
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| This beautiful birdbath can be re-created with a little bit of creativity. |
