Backyard Birding

Suet is a much loved treat for insect eating birds. It provides them with the protein they need and helps insect eating birds such as woodpeckers through the winter when insects are scarce. Suet is actually the fat from around the kidney and can be served as is (although it will turn rancid) or rendered. You can also purchase it in pre-made blocks or plugs which will frequently be flavored and mixed with fruits, seeds and nuts.

You can also make your own suet substitute. Here is the basic recipe we use:

1 cup peanut butter (The cheaper the better. Cheaper peanut butters have higher oil contents.)
1 cup shortening or lard.
1 cup whole wheat flour.
1 cup whole oats
2 cups mixed fruits, nuts and seeds (approximate)

For the fruit mixture, I dice raisins, nuts, coconut, and frozen or dried apple pieces together with some mixed birdseed. Feel free to substitute what you have on hand.

Stir this all together until it is the consistency of a really stiff cookie dough. It should stick together, but not be doughy.

I generally only feed this to our birds in the colder months for fear of spoilage, but the birds seem to really like it. We have attracted: white-breasted nuthatches, red-breasted nuthatches, flickers, red-bellied woodpeckers, red-headed woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers and orioles with this mixture. Sparrows and grackles will eat it as well…and of course the squirrels devour it when they get the chance.

We usually offer this to the birds in our homemade suet feeder.

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‘Tis the season for harvesting and baking. While you are busy with season favorites, don’t forget about your birds! Fruits and nuts are a little too expensive for me to purchase just four our birds, but even these coveted treats can be offered on a budget. Here are a few ways to take advantage of seasonal items to attract birds to your yard:

1. Squash and pumpkin seeds.

Whether you are carving a field pumpkin, or preparing a pumpkin pie, set aside the seeds. Lay them out on a cookie sheet in a single layer and place in a warm oven. This will speed the process, but they will eventually dry on a counter as well. Store them in a bag in the freezer until you are ready to use them. Nuthatches love them, and many other birds will eat them as well. You can try laying out a slice of pumpkin. At least the squirrels will enjoy this fruity treat,

2. Dried apples.

If you pick apples, set aside a few that are bruised or damaged. These make good applesauce, but there are a number of birds which may be attracted to apples, including robins and bluebirds which do not normally frequent feeders. Slice the fruit thinly and dry in the sun or in a warm oven. Store in the freezer and serve up a nice treat throughout the winter.

3. Apple cores.

A lot of seasonal cooking includes cored apples. Do not just throw those cores away. You can serve them as is and birds will peck at them. Squirrels will also cart them off and store them when they come across them. I dice them and throw them in a bag in the freezer to add to our homemade, imitation suet I put out in the winter months. Birds will eat the apple seeds as well. so be sure to include them!

4. Other fruits.

We eat a lot of fruit in our house, including just about whatever is in season. The cores or pips often have quite a bit of fruit left on them. Children also do not always eat all of the fruit. All of these fruity leftovers get diced up and frozen to be served to the birds at a later date.

5. Nuts.

Many insect eating birds greatly appreciate this high protein food. If any of the nuts in your stores are less than desirable, freeze them for your birds. You can also collect nuts from the trees in your neighborhood, including acorns and walnuts.

I do not feed my birds too many fruits when the weather is warm because I do not like the ants and bees it attracts. It also molds more quickly and since I set it out rarely, it will sometimes go bad before the birds discover it as a food sources. The only exception to this is apple cores. I hang them from our lilac bush regularly and it is always consumed within a day. During the winter, however, the fruit remains frozen and is normally eaten before I discard it. I also add it to my suet recipe which the birds love.

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If you have an oak tree in your yard or neighborhood, you have a ready source of much needed protein for your feeder birds this winter. Fill your pockets or a paper bag while out on a walk. Acorns can be collected and stored in a cool, dry place throughout the winter. Keep them in a rodent-proof container and you will have a very cost-effective, nutritional snack for your winter visitors.

Nuts have a high fat content, which is important to bids in the winter, especially insect eating birds which have a higher metabolism. Nuts, fruits, berries and oils all will attract a diverse number of birds to your feeders that may not normally come for the seed offered at most feeders. These specialty foods can be very expensive, however. Unless you have an oak tree handy, that is!

To prepare the acorns, simply place a handful in an old sock and tie it off. Hammer the acorns to crack the shell and break up the meat inside. You can place the acorns on a platform feeder for nut-loving birds such as woodpeckers and jays. The pieces can also be mixed with a homemade suet.

Birds can be wary of new foods, however, so do not be surprised if the new offering sits for a couple of days. Scatter the acorns in amongst the seeds you normally place in your platform or ground feeder so that the birds will be more likely to sample them. Once they discover this tasty treat, they will likely be back for more!

Of course, you can also lay out a few whole acorns for the squirrels in your yard. Ours tend to eat the sunflower seed at the feeder and run off with corn cobs and acorns to hide in the lilac bush nearby. Watch your squirrels carefully at this time of the year, and you will likely find several spots where they keep their stores.

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Birds have no teeth, yet must somehow grind the food they eat for digestion. For this, they swallow grit which is stored in the crop. Birds scavenging along the edge of the road are frequently searching for grit. It is generally widely available in nature, but can be a little more difficult to find in the winter when the ground is covered with snow. Offering this necessary resource can make your feeding station more desirable to a greater diversity of bird species.

Grit can actually be purchased from a wildlife habitat store and of course there are special feeders designed just for holding it. Crushed oyster shells can also be purchased which have the added benefit of providing calcium to your birds.

There is another source, however, which is frequently overlooked: egg shells. Offering egg shells to your birds is easy and free. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Peel the inner membranes away from the inside of the shells.

2. Boil or bake to sanitize.

3. Crush into small, bird-bite sized pieces.

4. Offer in a dish or other container near your feeders.

If you have children, or just an inquisitive mind, you might like to try some of these activities as you prepare to begin cracking eggs. A diagram of an egg will also be helpful in identifying the parts of the egg as you dissect it. This provides one more glimpse into the fascinating world of birds!

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Cracked corn is one of the cheapest seed options for attracting birds to your yard. It will attract a variety of birds, including sparrows, jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, doves, juncos, nuthatches and towhees. If wild game is in your area, it may also attract quail and pheasants. We actually purchase our corn from the local feed store for about $5.00 for a 50lb bag. You cannot get much more cost effective than that!

What to watch for when purchasing cracked corn

The interior of the kernel readily soaks up moisture. It therefore is quick to rot.
If the corn is too finely ground, it will turn to mush.
If the kernels are too large, smaller birds such as juncos and sparrows will have a hard time eating it.

How to offer cracked corn

Cracked corn will stay good longest protected in a waterproof hopper feeder. Most of the birds coming to my hopper feeder are finches and grosbeaks, however, and they do not seem to care much for corn.
Offered on a platform feeder, it will attract jays, cardinals, woodpeckers and nuthatches.
At the ground feeder, it will attract predominantly sparrows and juncos.

Added benefits:

Since sparrows eat cracked corn and cracked corn is cheap, I would prefer them to eat this than the more expensive black oil sunflower seed I keep in the platform and hopper feeders. House sparrows will eat from any feeder, but they seem to prefer to feed on the ground. Keeping cracked corn in a ground feeder for them greatly minimizes the amount of other seed they consume. It can also be scattered on a concrete porch or other hard surface. Be cautious about spreading it directly on the ground due to the potential for rotting.

Birds are not the only wildlife that likes corn. Squirrels, raccoons and opossums also eat it. I have not had too much difficulty with nighttime visitors at my feeders (they just got into our feed stores), but squirrels are a constant. In theory, giving them corn will curb their voracious appetites and save a little on other feeds. If this is true, I would hate to see how many sunflower seeds they would eat without the corn!

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There are a wide range of suet feeders on the market, some merely functional, others decorative as well. The one pictured here is our favorite for the obvious reason that it is home made. My husband and the children spent some time going through our woodpile looking for promising branches large enough to drill a large hole through. The hole is one inch in diameter in order to accommodate commercially prepared suet plugs.

Our homemade suet feeder has attracted a variety of birds, including:

1. nuthatches
2. downy woodpeckers
3. hairy woodpeckers
4. red-headed woodpeckers
5. red-bellied woodpeckers
6. orioles
7. northern flickers
8. one hummingbird

I think the hummingbird was inspecting the suet feeder for insects, or perhaps it was just curious. It actually chased off a downy woodpecker in order to investigate further.

We have tried a variety of types of suet in the feeder, including my homemade imitation suet, commercial suet plugs and even suet cakes. We just cut the cakes into bars and push them into the holes. Any of these are messy, but I think it is probably good hand lotion!

We also have a basket suet feeder, but it gets emptied quickly when we fill it because of the sparrows and grackles. Although the sparrows can still eat from our wooden one, they prefer not to and will only feed from it when all the other feeders are empty. Since that is a rare occasion, they leave it alone for the most part. I have only seen the grackles eat from it when they stood on a nearby branch and stretch for it. A little repositioning has prevented that from reoccurring.

If you have not tried offering suet before, it is a wonderful way to attract a number of birds which normally feed on insects. Even bluebirds can be trained to eat from it if you are patient.

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To appease our squirrels, we have a homemade squirrel feeder consisting of a board with two large screws in it. This is nailed to the tree where they nest. Ears of corn slide neatly onto the screw and it is fun to watch the squirrels hang out on the feeder, defend it from one another and occasionally take time to actually eat from it. The blue jays and red-bellied woodpeckers also love the corn.

To save a little on corn, we decided to try out a Squirrel Log, which promised to be the equivalent of 12-24 ears of corn. They slid onto the screws in the feeder nicely. It took a few days for the squirrels to sample it, but they seem to like it just as well as the regular corn cobs. The blue jays haven’t touched it, but the red-bellied woodpecker still frequents the squirrel feeder. And our white-breasted nuthatch has returned! I haven’t seen it since Spring began and now it visits the squirrel feeder daily.

The only difficulty we have had is that the squirrels tend to eat the center out of the log. The end then falls to the ground. We either need a different design for our feeder, or longer screws which go completely through the log. They definitely last a lot longer than the ears of corn, so I think it is worth looking for a solution. For the moment, we are just throwing the ends of the logs into the ground feeder for the squirrels to munch there. I may try putting them on the screw on the platform feeder as well.

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Nyjer seed is a popular seed for finch feeders. Our gold finches, house finches and purple finches love it. We offer it in a traditional tube feeder, but it is also available in sort of sock that the birds can hang from while they eat. House sparrows will also eat this seed, but there are ways to discourage this, which I will discuss later.

Nyjer is frequently referred to as thistle seed, but the two plants are not related. While finches do love thistle, and use the down to line their nests, they actually seem to prefer Nyjer when it is available. It has a high oil content which is important for wild birds.

This seed actually is imported from Egypt and thus has been heat sterilized. It is unlikely that this seed will sprout because of the heat sterilization, but seeds do occasionally survive the process. If you find one of the lovely little yellow flowers in your garden, you should remove it immediately. They can be quite prolific and you do not want to introduce a non-native species which could be detrimental to our native plants. Here is more information, from the Wild Bird Feeding Industry (pdf). Because this seed has been sterilized, it is not good for long. If the seed is much older than a month, birds will begin to reject it. If there is no activity at your finch feeder, try replacing the seed with fresh seed. This is one type of seed we only purchase from our local wild bird store because the freshness is so important.

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When purchasing seed, it is tempting to buy the cheaper mixed seeds which promise a greater variety of birds to your feeder. These, however, are often filled with filler seeds such as red millet and wheat which our native song birds will not eat. If you have ever seen one of your birds sweep seeds out of your feeder, he is likely digging for his favorite foods.

One of the most popular seeds among songbirds is black oil sunflower. It is a rich, black seed with no stripe. The lighter seeds with the stripe often sold for human consumption do not have the high oil content the birds need. (And if you look closely, many mixed seeds offer this variety rather than the black oil sunflower seed.) Some of the birds this seed will attract:

Goldfinches
Nuthatches
Cardinals
Jays
Titmice
Flickers
Grosbeaks
Chickadees
Certain sparrows

I’ve noticed that we actually go through a lot less seed now that we have switched, and attract more birds. Our hopper feeder seems to only be a sort of docking station for those who can’t fit on the platform feeder, now, but all of our birds love the sunflower seed.

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