Feed birds now for feathered benefits later

By Bev Johnson | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, December 22, 2007

Still don't know what to get that favorite uncle for Christmas? Get him started bird watching. He will need a squirrel proof feeder or two, a suet feeder, a heated birdbath and seed. Black sunflower seeds, nyger seed and suet will do it.

This is going to be an excellent year to see more winter birds than usual. Seed crops in Canada were poor so we will be seeing more redpolls, siskins and crossbills.

A new visitor to many feeders is the red-breasted nuthatch. This is a darling little bird. He is about half the size of our usual nuthatches.

The size alone will help you identify him, but he also has a black line through his eye and a rusty red belly. He seems more approachable than his Minnesota cousins.

Nyger seed and mixed finch seed spread on the deck rail or on an open feeder will attract the various finches. Woodpeckers are attracted to suet. You don't need to buy commercial suet cakes, birds are very

happy to eat raw suet and it is much cheaper at your local meat store.

You will need a feeder for it. Just hanging it from a tree will attract not only woodpeckers, but also cats.

These few things, a feeder, birdbath, suet container and seed, are all you need for Uncle Phil's gift. Next year, you can get him some good binoculars so he can watch distant birds, or maybe his neighbors.

Did you know that naturalists call the blue jay nature's foresters?

Squirrels carry away acorns but bury them too deep for the nuts to germinate. Blue jays hide the nuts in the leaf litter or gently push them into the soil. They will search through a pile of acorns, most beginning to deteriorate, or have worms in them and 88 percent of the time; the jay will pick up only the 10 percent that are viable.

Not only that, one jay may hide or bury as many as 5,000 acorns every fall. Of course, being a birdbrain, they never remember where they hid them all.

Blue jays are a migratory bird, so why would they bury food for the winter? The wusses are the young birds. The older, wiser jays stay here, dig up some of the hidden acorns and attempt to dominate the feeder, terrifying the smaller birds.

There are feeders that only allow the small birds to feed from them if you have this problem.

Scattering sunny seeds and cracked corn on the ground will help keep these robbers out of the feeders, sometimes.

Feed the birds in the winter and they will reward you by eating bugs and worms in the summer.

Bev Johnson is a master gardener for West Otter Tail County.