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ENCORE50A

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Last spring and summer birds around here were pretty much nonexistent. Except for filling the peanut butter feeders for the Pileated and the Downey's, I don't think I even filled a thistle feeder all summer and the black oil sunflower seed may have had some added to every couple weeks. Even the hummingbirds were in very low numbers compared to years past. I wasn't the only person in the area wondering where all the birds were.

Well I didn't realize how much money that saved me. OHG I have finches by the hundreds and have since it got cold. I mean they are eating me out of house and home! Daily I go through 6 or 7 2# coffee cans of black oil sunflower seed. Our thistle feeder tubes are 4' long and at minimum those will be 1/2 empty or more. In total I have 9 feeders up.
The aerial shows are sometimes out of this world and at least once a week, one will commit suicide by hitting one of our 3 8' sliders. I've already invested $158 this month and I'm heading out to buy more seed yet this afternoon!!!!! The wife thinks that maybe next year we should have fewer feeders.

Every once in awhile something comes along and saves you a little money. For longer than normal today, actually over 2hrs, we had a visitor that slowed down the emptying of the feeders.


Sharp Shinned Hawk

sharp-shinned-hawk_ES.jpg
 
I kind of like those sharp shinned tweeties out front where the sparrow feeder is. Help to keep those slow flying pests in check. We had one sharp shinned slam into the house where the woodpecker and finch feeders are last winter. It didn't make it. The year before one couldn't swerve quick enough and wrung its neck on a shepard's hook.
 
Well............... $158 + $149 = $306 spent this month! Dang, when propellant shows back up in 5# containers that's a bottle!!
For some reason there's a ton of finches this year. Yeah its a lot of money but, can't stop feeding them now. Besides with the wife recovering it gives her something to watch :)
 
I mix black oil sunflower and sunflower hearts and pieces for the finch feeders . Lots of finches, house finches, nuthatches and red bellied nuthatches plus the usual chickadees.

The woodpeckers are offered rendered deer suet mixed with a couple jars of chunky peanut butter then mixed with whole blackoil sunflower seed. I pour this into cake forms for wire cages and it gets stuffed into holes in a hanging birch log. The cracklings [solids] left over from rendering the deer fat is stuffed into one pound coffee cans and backfilled with liquid fat. When hard the cans get split [as needed] and the suet inside gets put in a round cage feeder and the woodies love it. Pileated woodies love that round feeder and will hang on it for an hour and pound away. They also like the birch log.

The sparrows get cheap generic seed.

I have a feeder menagerie right outside the computer desk window....8 feeder all withing a few feet of the glass. Furthest is about 14 feet. Love my birds.
 
I mix black oil sunflower and sunflower hearts and pieces for the finch feeders . Lots of finches, house finches, nuthatches and red bellied nuthatches plus the usual chickadees.

The woodpeckers are offered rendered deer suet mixed with a couple jars of chunky peanut butter then mixed with whole blackoil sunflower seed. I pour this into cake forms for wire cages and it gets stuffed into holes in a hanging birch log. The cracklings [solids] left over from rendering the deer fat is stuffed into one pound coffee cans and backfilled with liquid fat. When hard the cans get split [as needed] and the suet inside gets put in a round cage feeder and the woodies love it. Pileated woodies love that round feeder and will hang on it for an hour and pound away. They also like the birch log.

The sparrows get cheap generic seed.

I have a feeder menagerie right outside the computer desk window....8 feeder all withing a few feet of the glass. Furthest is about 14 feet. Love my birds.

We also have all of the above birds and a couple red headed ;) That sharp shinned had a few chances at a couple downy but didn't score.
I took a couple pieces of cedar timber and drilled 1" holes in it to stuff peanut butter in. Pileated and downey love it. Ha, also that darn bear likes peanut butter too. Well at least before the electric went up. Not only did he eat the peanut butter, but both pieces of cedar! I imagine it had a lot of peanut oil in the wood so he just gobbled it down.

I told the farmer I buy seed from that they were eating me out of house and home and he just smiled. He said, "everyone is going through seed like that". He said one lady is buying $80 of seed each week. Good to see the birds back but its getting expensive.


MVI 1099 - YouTube
 
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I don’t have as much activity as the rest of you, but the Blue Jays can sure make a dent in the feeders/suet cakes. Since moving to the U.P. from the lower, we no longer have the Cardinals, but do have the Pine Grosbeaks. They are almost as tolerant of me as the Chickadees and Downey/Harrys when I’m filling the feeders.
 
Feeding the critters can get expensive, but as long as it keeps the spousal unit entertained it is worth while. Two or three times a day it looks as if there is a gray carpet outside the kitchen window. It's quail.
There must be 5 or 6 different kinds of feeders hanging on the tree in front of the kitchen window. They get filled at least once per day. I put fencing around an old stump and pour scratch on the stump to feed the quail. The fencing was necessary to keep the turkeys from gobbling the scratch down before the quail could get any.
 
but do have the Pine Grosbeaks. They are almost as tolerant of me as the Chickadees and Downey/Harrys when I’m filling the feeders.

lol. I was filling feeder the other day when it was super cold here, like -25 degrees. I took down a tower feeder that I put my sunflower and sunflower pieces into and there was a Downy hanging the other side until I pulled the cover back to fill it. I've had chickadees sit on my shoulder while tending to the feeders.
 

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