Backyard Bird Watching

Bird Feeder Baffles Squirrel Proof Guards. Anyone who enjoys the hobby of backyard bird watching and feeding birds can tell you that eventually you are going to run into problems with squirrels. Most of us begin our hobby with squirrel trouble. While wildlife is welcomed in my garden at any time, those pesky squirrels can climb about anything and jump distances to reach a bird feeder. And they are persistent! They will keep trying over and over again until they reach their target.

Stopping squirrels is an important issue for backyard bird watchers. If you don’t, the tree rats will chew up expensive, costly bird feeders along with eat the entire contents of a feeder in no time flat. They will also keep the desirable birds off feeders by hogging all of the perching space and simply being larger than birds.

To stop them you need to protect your bird feeders with squirrel proof baffles and guards. These are made for all types of feeders but I am going to address pole mounted only at first.

A classic design is the chimney or stove pipe squirrel proof bird feeder baffle. These can be in squirrel sizes or if you have raccoon, a larger size is needed. They fit onto a pole or 4x4 post by slipping over the post, so the bird feeder must be off the pole when installing, They are easy to install and very effective in stopping squirrels or raccoon from climbing poles. A bird feeder must be places at least 10′ away from the nearest object a squirrel can jump from though! While a stove pipe baffle protects a feeder from below it does not protect the feeder from the top or sides.

A second style of bird feeder pole baffle is a flat tray squirrel guard. These tend to be my favorites simply because I turn them up side down and it doubles as a seed tray over my larger feeders. They are very effective in stopping squirrels from accessing bird seed ans well as act as a second bird feeding area when seed falls on it and birds can land and eat.

The last type of pole mounted bird feeder squirrel proof baffle is a cone shape. These can be very handy if a bird feeder is already yp and in use where removing the feeder may be a difficult task. They make installing simple by wrapping around and existing pole or 4x4 post. Any of these designs can also be used to pole mount bird houses to protect babies and rgss during nesting season!

Go see Songbird Bird Houses, Winter Roosting Boxes for products. After someone has been a backyard bird watcher for a time and been feeding wild birds and providing them with fresh water, people then naturally progress to wanting to provide nesting sites so birds can build their nests and raise babies in the backyard. There is a learning curve when you begin to get into the hobby of providing bird houses and nesting boxes for backyard birds, next thing you know, you are up to your eyes in dimensions, perfect placement, and all sorts of mess! And then you find the birds are gong to do whatever they want anyway! So here are a few basic tips when buying a bird house that actually will attract species to nest in your yard.

 The number one thing I have found is that people get bird houses where the entrancement is too small. There are a zillion opinions and a bunch of numbers you can go over, but I have found that an entrance of 1 1/2" is about right for the widest variety of smaller songbirds. Yes  1 1/4 is good for chickadees and wrens, smaller nuthatches, but that can not accommodate titmice, larger nuthatches and bluebirds. Chickadees, with only one brood per season, usually nest first. Great! They have built a nest and raised their family, the baby birds fledged, and now the box is empty for the summer. If the entrance was 1 1/2", then the box can be used again that season. Bluebirds can have as many as three in a season. Titmice nest after the chickadee.

Don’t paint a birdhouse. Just don’t. Common sense tells you this isn’t natural. If you honestly want to provide a safe habitat for wild birds but insist on something decorative, check into the type of paint that is used carefully and go ahead and add some pretty boxes, but then be sure to provide some good, solid boxes of pine or cedar that are left natural. The wood is eventually going to turn a beautifull silver gray as it ages and be stunning anyway! Plus it is what is best for wild birds along with what is most natural for them. Cavity nesting birds don’t seek out homes in the wild based upon color, and dead trees that have natural cavities or  make good potential homes aren’t painted.

 Lastly, a handy idea is a winter summer convertable roosting box. You can have not only a birdhouse that is perfect for smaller songbirds and bluebirds, but in the winter you can flip the door over so that the enterance is on the bottom, insert perches that come with it and instantly it becomes a winter roost that birds can use to stay out of the freezing weather, cold rains or snows. These are a teriffic idea!

I bought myself a window bird feeder and I am not really sure why, after all, I have a slew of feeders in my backyard already so another one was not what I needed. I’ve also never been into window feeders because of bird window strikes. Now thank goodness I have not had this happen except on very rare occasions and the birds have always survived, but I didn’t want to invite trouble by attracting them towards the glass. Then I read that if you have window strike problems a window feeder can help since it gives dimension to the otherwise smooth reflection in the glass. Okay so this maybe was my rationalization. It was a whim. So, thinking that I was really smart, I purchased a two-in-one style feeder. I bought the one pictured below. (you can buy them at : Window Bird Feeders) It’s pretty nifty because the top comes off and in the winter you can put bird seeds in it, then in the summer use it for a hummingbird feeder. I put it out and used peanuts in it. This gave me the chance to feed peanuts to the smaller birds without having them at my main bird feeding stations, therefore the larger caching birds don’t wipe out the peanut supply rapidly. So far it has nuthatches (white breasted, brown headed) and titmice in it all day long. Oddly my Carolina chickadees don’t visit it. Go figure!

I was quite surprised with how much I enjoyed having a window feeder from day one. I love it! But I wasn’t thrilled with the black metal holder - this is entirely a personal preference. There is not a darn thing wrong with it. But being me, I bought a different one. See below, Now this model I like better. The little tray sits inside the holder and lifts out without having to take the feeder off the glass, it is a nice thick plastic and I put the removeable tray part in the dishwasher. Same as the black metal bracket model but still, I prefer the one below. There are no drain holes in the tray of course as it is supposed to be used as a hummingbird feeder and hold nectar but I haven’t found this to be a problem. It sits under eaves and the rain does not come from that direction so all is well. Of course we are in drought so rain is a memory which help keeps it dry.

 
 What I have had a problem with is the dang suction cups sticking to the glass. I think it’s my glass though, no fault of the feeder at all. I have weird windows and I’m not even completely convinced that they are glass. Anyhow, after it fell down several times on me, I bought a second suction cup, drilled a second hole in the back of the feeder and had two suction cups holding it up. It fell down. By this time I was loving the feeder right at my window, and the birds were having fits when it fell down, attempting to hover where their feeder should be. I was determined to keep it up, after all, the squirrels could not get it, I could feed peanuts and the birds were fussing at me. I ended up using a small piece of double adhesive velcro on the back of the feeder. I didn’t want to do this thinking that this would be tacky, but the strip of velcro is small as the feeder itself is very light and it does not show. It hasn’t fallen down since. My titmice have stopped screaming at me to get their dang peanuts back every time I walk outside.

 There are several styles of window bird feeders on the market but I do recommended when you by one, make sure that it lifts off easily without removing the suction cups. I haven’t found a need for a larger capacity than the one above, it is located right outside my door and a quick fill, but perhaps you would like to fill less often. I love the two-in-one models and recommend them! They also have similar in oriole instead of hummingbird feeders.

 The red headed woodpecker is one of my favorite birds. i used to see them often years ago, but now i have not seen one in years. When they say that a bird is on the decline I believe it. You don’t really notice things that go missing. Please help these birds.

This is from the Audubon Bird Watch List: 

Threats

At one time the Red-headed Woodpecker was targeted by sportsmen because of its brilliant red plumage, as an agricultural pest, and for damage to telephone poles. Its population has decreased as a result of food source losses, as evidenced by population declines in association with the decline of beech trees and the disappearance of Rocky Mountain grasshoppers. Collisions with automobiles were particularly common in the mid-1900s and the species is considered a rare victim of tower collisions. Nest failure occurs when nests are excavated in telephone poles recently (within 3-4 years) treated with creosote. Competition for nesting sites with European Starlings was thought to decrease reproductive success, but recent studies show that this may not be the case. The mere fact that starlings nest earlier than this woodpecker suggests that Red-heads may not be vulnerable to starling invasion. Habitat has been degraded by the harvesting of snags, clearcuts, agricultural development, channeling of rivers, regeneration of eastern forests, fire suppression, monoculture crops, and the loss of small orchards.

Conservation
The Red-headed Woodpecker is listed as a vulnerable species in Canada and is listed on multiple state threatened species lists in the United States. Habitat should be managed so as to provide large forest fragments (>2 ha) with large snags for nesting and open areas for catching flying insects. In addition, selective thinning has been shown to increase the likelihood of occurrence and nesting in Ohio. Controlled fires have negative and positive impacts. While they open up the forest (providing open space for fly catching) and create snags, they can also destroy existing snags used for nesting.

The Red-headed Woodpecker is listed as a priority species in Partners in Flight’s Bird Conservation Plan for the Upper Great Lakes Plain (http://www.partnersinflight.org). One of the objectives of this plan is to increase Red-headed Woodpeckers by 3% per year in USFWS Region 3 from 1980-2010 as measured by the Breeding Bird Survey.

What Can You Do?
Audubon’s Important Bird Area program is a vital tool for the conservation of Red-headed Woodpeckers as well as other species. To learn more about the Important Bird Area programs in New York and Colorado, and other states with breeding populations of Red-headed Woodpeckers, and how you can help, visit: http://www.audubon.org/bird/iba/

Volunteers are crucial to the success of programs that monitor the long-term status of wintering populations of Red-headed Woodpeckers and other bird species. Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is one of the longest-running citizen-science monitoring programs in the world and has helped to follow changes in the numbers and distribution of Red-headed Woodpecker.
Information on where Red-headed Woodpeckers occur and in what numbers is vital to conserving the species. Help in monitoring this and other species by reporting your sightings to eBird. A project of Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, eBird is the world’s first comprehensive on-line bird monitoring program.
The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the USDA Forest Service coordinate Birds in Forested Landscapes, a citizen-science project that links volunteer birders and professional ornithologists in a study of the habitat requirements of North American forest birds, including Red-headed Woodpecker. To learn more about Birds in Forested Landscapes, and how you can participate in the project, visit: http://birds.cornell.edu/bfl/