This year we have gotten a little more serious about feeding the local birds. I don't think it is totally about being just nice people wanting to help the wildlife, not that we are not delightful, but rather it is about helping ourselves. I don't mean this in a totally selfish way, but due to the time we spend watching the flitting flock, it would seem it is more than just giving a handout and being done with it.
In the morning under the influence of tea and biscuits, we twist our necks and try to get that one good look at bird action on the feeders. Unlike many, we have not plopped the feeder right next to the window, even though just today, we went over that possibility because we want more spectacular views, but we put the thing in the middle of the yard thinking it was the only easy place to put it and keep it away from the fricking squirrels. Kept it high and kept it away from any structures so the stinking varmints that wants the feeder will have to walk the tight rope. However, if they were to try, and I am sure they will, it would be a Wallenda moment, and worth watching the looters fumble about.
It is suspended out there, form a line stretched between the big maple and the lean to and to date has been a success from city standards. I refuse to compare it to rural opportunities because they have an embarrassing amount of varieties and number compared to us. We have had three types of wood peckers, Downy, Hairy, and Red Belly, Juncos (might be two kinds) 2 different Nuthatches, Eastern Blue Jays, spectacular Cardinals, Morning Doves, Finches of the purple kind, assorted sparrows of the English variety (they take tea with us) and of course the noticeably busy Chickadees. Today as I left the house I saw a mature Bald Eagle fly over so I counted it as solid sighting on the feeder---he was looking for food down here.
It is also true the squirrels do work the low ground under the feeder, picking up the spillings that some of the slop birds dump off the platform. Just today a Downy Pecker rifled through the various seeds picking only his most preferred selection and in the process dumping copious amounts to the stupid squirrel laying on his back with his mouth open. May have been a plot. We are easily entertained--and all this for a $20 bad of seeds.
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