Garden Bird Feeders

Archive for May, 2010

When you look for a home for your family you don’t want to accept just anything. There are certain things that it must have before you’ll want to move in. Birds are no different. Before they make a decision to set up roots in your garden, they are looking for it to have certain features.

When a bird is making a decision to live in or visit your garden sanctuary, it is basically asking itself these questions. And will make its decision based on it’s instinct.

Where Can I Hide?

In the average cityscape, birds have one major predator – cats. Domesticated and homeless cats kill millions of birds throughout the U.S. every year. Additional predators include other birds such as owls, hawks, and falcons. We also can’t forget predators such as snakes, raccoons, squirrels, and chipmunks.

So one of the first things a bird is asking itself is “where can I find cover” to hide and protect myself from predators? You can help the bird make the decision to choose your yard by putting up cat proof fencing. You can also plan your garden so that it has widely spaced open areas to deny cover for predator where they can mount a sneak attack.

Is There Available Shelter?

Evergreens and other bushes planted against garden and house walls provide a natural shelter to shield birds from rain. You can also place a combination bird house and bird feeder in the garden which not only supplies food, but includes a pitched top and side walls that can protect them from rain, heavy storms, and harsh winds.

Is There A Place Where I Can Raise A Family?

During the breeding season, this is one of the primary features that birds are looking for. They are looking for a place where they can settle down for a while with their partner and raise their young ones. Depending on the birds you are trying to attract to your garden, you can plant the appropriate trees, shrubs, hedges, and so on where they would normally nest if they were in the wild. If you are more ambitious, you can buy or build them a custom birdhouse which will meet all of their housing needs.

Is There Plenty Of Food And Water Nearby?

Natural food sources are the best. Birds will look for their natural food sources before attempting other foods. So find out the natural types of foods that your birds of choice like and populate your garden with them. In the winter time when the natural food sources have dried out and birds are having a hard time scrounging up food, bird feeders can be their friend. Populate a bird feeder with seeds, suet, and other alternative food choices that you know they would enjoy. And don’t forget water. Birds love and need water and a birdbath will do wonders to attract birds to your yard, In colder climates, an added investment of a few dollars to buy a heated birdbath will pay great dividends in the winter months.

A bird’s life is fragile and their existence is fraught with danger for nearly all of their lives. The more you can do to help them beat the odds the better for them and the better for you as you enjoy their presence all year round.

When you are trying to keep squirrel out, there are a couple of approaches to try. One way is to simply try to block them from getting to the feeder. There are two common types of feeders that do that.

A baffled bird feeder works by restricting access to the the food in the feeder. The advantage to using a baffle is that it more or less separates the squirrel proof barrier from the feeder itself, so that the bird have free access to the bird seed, and any size bird can still use the feeder. This is often more visually appealing than some other approaches. You can do this by pole mounting the feeder, and then putting baffle below the feeder on the pole. Other types use a hanging arrangement and the baffle forms a roof over the feeder.

The disadvantage of this approach is that squirrels can leap large distances, and are incredibly agile climbers, so that they will often find a way to land on the actual feeder and bypass the baffling. With the top mounted feeder you may also find a squirrel smart enough to climb down and cause the feeder to swing, and while they may not gain access to the feeder itself they can cause the bird food to spill to the ground, where they can get all the food they want.

The other typical approach is to use a caged bird feeder. These are built with some type of cage around the actual feeder area. The comes in several styles, one of the more popular is a tube feeder with cage around that, but there are smaller round cages as well.

Caged feeders work well at keeping the squirrels out of the actual feeder area, but it can restrict the access of the birds as well, especially larger birds.

Of course it helps with any of these feeders to make it hard for the squirrels to get to the feeder, and one of the simplest things to do is to mount it on pole designed to make it difficult to climb. Put the pole far away from trees, fences, houses, or anything else the little robbers can climb.

The other approach to eliminating squirrels in your bird feeder is to force them out of the feeder. These feeders are a little more expensive, but they are very effective. Two kinds of those feeders fall into this category, weight activated squirrel proof feeders and the electronic motorized bird feeders. While this doesn’t harm the squirrels it is fun to watch squirrels being defeated…

Before starting this article about building a squirrel proof bird feeder, let me ask you this question, whats with squirrels? We all know that watching these creatures roaming around the backyard lawn can be truly delightful. But they can also cause destruction to your birdfeeders and scare the birds away. Most squirrels like the foods intended for the birds. During winter, indomitable homeowners and squirrels are in a battle over bird food in numerous backyards. Other animals, like raccoons, steal bird food, but more often squirrels raid bird feeders. Ignoring the extremes of winter season, nothing beats the squirrel in persistently achieving its goal, they have enough agility and dexterity to be able to climb onto any surface that birds could reach, and most often squirrels succeed in adapting in the urban-suburban habitat that we humans created.

Actually there are two ways of keeping squirrels away from birdfeeders. First is preventing squirrels from entering the birdfeeders. There are quite a few ways in preventing these creatures from entering the birdfeeder. First step is to locate your bird feeder a good distance from tree trunks, limbs, and at least twelve feet away from any kind of object that a squirrel can leap from.

Second step is to install a baffle on top of the birdfeeder. It can be homemade or a commercial squirrel dome. The purpose is to keep squirrels off the birdfeeders. Heres the idea of this device: when a squirrel attempts to climb to the bird feeder it must go along the suspension line. It gets confused because of prevented access to the seeds inside the bird feeder and soon gives up.

Third step is suspending your birdfeeders between two very distant poles or trees with heavy-duty nylon string and attach a plastic PVC pipe on both ends of the string. This makes it more difficult for the squirrel to reach the birdfeeder. And the fourth step is mounting the birdfeeder to a pole with a minimum height of six feet from the ground. Its purpose is to keep the squirrels from leaping onto the birdfeeder, likewise, the baffle should not be lower than five feet above the ground when you attach it to the mounting pole.

Another way is by diverting squirrels from bird feeders by means of creating a certain area wherein you can feed the squirrels. It is inexpensive and at the same time very entertaining. Various squirrel toys are available commercially, including the squirrel wheel and the picnic table style squirrel feeders, but make sure to install these diversion feeders lower than your birdhouses. Left over grain cereal, inexpensive dried corn cobs and old bread can be considered the best offerings for squirrels. You can even place some fruits or peanuts and peanut butter which are irresistible to squirrels.

By using these ideas you can prevent and divert the squirrels from destroying your birdfeeders, and at the same time you can enjoy squirrels and birds playing in your backyard lawn and garden together in harmony.