Reliable sources of food and water are two essential elements for attracting wildlife to your backyard zoo. Last week’s blog focused on bird baths. This week I’d like to speak about bird feeders. According to wildlife authorities, Americans spend in excess of $2 billion dollars each year feeding birds in their backyards. That’s only a fraction or what we spend each year on pizza, hamburgers or coffee, but I’m willing to bet it’s more than the public spends each year visiting zoos and aquariums across the country.
If you don’t already have a bird feeder hanging outside your window, you don’t know what you’re missing. Hardly a day goes by at my house without our avian neighbors putting on a show, some unexpected visitor showing up or a pesky gray squirrel figuring out how to pilfer a share of the seeds or nuts we provide. Bird feeders come in every imaginable variety, designed to dispense different types of food to different species. The feeder in the photo above is designed to provide small thistle seeds, a favorite food of goldfinches. You can wind up spending a pretty penny on some of the more substantial varieties, but you can also construct them out of common household items at little to no cost. Either way, you’ve given resident and migrant birds a reason to visit your backyard.
If you decide to install a bird feeder in your backyard, I recommend first going to the library or going on-line and doing a little research. There is a wealth of information available regarding where to place feeders, which foods attract which species, and how feeding wild birds affects their behavior and ecology.
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