There is something very special about watching a new day begin with the birds. From quiet darkness, to the first early chirps, to the first few winged visitors, building to the busy activity of dozens, local birds are a big part of the start of each new day. If you pay attention, you are likely to see patterns in bird activity in your yard. Every yard is different and every day is different, but this is the pattern I see on a typical winter morning in my yard.
This “Fly-Through” Platform Feeder Used to Be a Ground Feeder
Putting a Feeder on a Pole: Each new season brings changes to the bird dynamics in the yard, so I tend to do some tweaking of the bird feeders or their placement each season. To reduce the amount of seed winding up in squirrel bellies, I decided to turn a ground platform feeder into a platform feeder on a pole. The feeder I converted is a Birds Choice Fly-Through Platform Feeder. It started out as an unpopular ground feeder and evolved into a very popular feeder once placed on a baffled pole.
When Common Grackles get on suet feeders, they can be a pain. This spring a small but very tenacious group of grackles arrived in the yard. They first dominated the Squirrel Buster Plus feeders, full of sunflower hearts, driving away smaller birds. And they got on the suet feeders.
Grackles need to eat too, but with grackles, the first day you’ll have one. The next day there will be two. Succeeding days will bring three then five then seven . . . So a change was in order.
