Feeding the Hogs!

[jdmidwest]

Just came in from feeding the hogs, aka birds. I have 2 feeders out and things have been pretty quiet until the snow fell 2 weeks ago Sunday. Then things started picking up.

I have been thru 80 lbs of hen scratch since then. After the snow, I started tossing some out on the ground because the feeders were too crowded. There has been an assortment. Wood peckers and wood hen, cardinals, blue jays, doves, sparrows, titmouse, thrush, snow birds, and a few I really can't pin a name on.

I was out there a while ago feeding and spotted something out of the corner of my eye. I turned around to catch a small hawk swooping in then pulling out when he saw me. No doubt, he has been feeding on some of my customers at the feeders.

[Jerry Rapp]

it sure has been a good winter for watching the birds. It seems the Cardinals are overwhelming this year. And I put a little food out on the deck so the fat kitty cat can watch out the window. But it is time for it to end. Need warmer weather.

[Al Agnew]

I've been on a starling mass murder spree. In the 20 some odd years we've lived here, we've never had starlings at the feeder until the last couple of weeks. A flock moved in and started monopolizing the feeders; not even the blue jays would feed when the starlings were there. First I shot a few with the .22, but with the scarcity of .22 ammo it didn't seem like a good idea to keep doing that. I switched to my 12 gauge for a dozen or so, but they were still coming in and that seemed a little expensive. I have a Benjamin pump up air rifle that's about 50 years old--I've had it ever since I was a kid. I hadn't shot it in many years because it had gotten to where it only shoots about one pump of air at a time, no matter how many pumps you put in it, and I wasn't sure that would even put out a .22 pellet with enough force to kill a starling at 12 yards, the distance from my open window to the feeders. But I bought a canister of pellets, took the rifle down to the basement and shot it into a box of old paperback books. The pellet penetrated the wall of the cardboard box and about five pages of a paperback, so I figured that was enough. It also still put pellets in a tight group, though the group was 2 inches low and an inch to the right of where I was aiming. I was able to adjust the sights for right and left but not up and down. So now I'm holding a half inch over the back of a side shot on the starling, or about at it's head if it's a frontal shot. The back yard ends up littered with dead starlings at the end of the day, but something comes and eats them overnight...though it was pointed out to me that might not be a good idea if whatever it is (probably skunks, for reasons I'll explain in a minute) eats the lead pellet with the starling. I've killed about four dozen of them and now I think the rest have finally learned their lesson; I only had to shoot one this morning.

When the starlings aren't around, we have a bunch of cardinals, jays, juncos, goldfinches, house finches, chickadees, nuthatches, titmice (or is that titmouses?), white throated sparrows, fox sparrows, downy, hairy, and redbellied woodpeckers, and a sapsucker, Carolina wrens, and the other day we had a flock of cedar waxwings move through. A mockingbird shows up now and then, too, and a few doves.

The other thing we've done this winter is get loads of meat and bone scraps from a local meat processor and put them down behind the house, with a game camera on them. We've attracted at least five different skunks; they all have different ratios of white to black, with one being all black but a white tip to its tail and a white spot atop its head, one being half white and half black, and the rest being somewhere in between. There's been a gray fox, coyotes, a feral cat, coons, possums, and barred owls at night, a slightly crippled coyote that has been there during daylight hours, a pair of red shouldered hawks, at least two redtailed hawks, and lots of vultures--one day I counted at least 90 vultures, some black, some turkey vultures, at one time. We also had an eagle one day but it didn't stick around long.

[GloryDaze]

Al, bet that hawk was a Sharp-Shinned or Coopers Hawk. Both notorious for swooping in on feeding birds. Two days ago one swooped out of the tree and one of the scattering birds flew straight into my window.

Pretty cool birds

[jdmidwest]

Al, you can find rebuild kits for those old Benjamin pumpers and rework them yourself. A few little o-rings make alot of difference.

I am trying to figure out what the orange breast, black back, head and beak bird is. I was guessing Oriole, but I doubt it.

I remember standing in the door of the shed 3 weeks ago talking to a friend on the phone, a robin landed on a limb close by. I laughed at him and told him he was way too early this year. He has been hunkering down in the white pines waiting for some open ground.

[BilletHead]

JD google up tohee. I would guess that is the bird in question. We used to feed the birds big time. Used to go through over fifty pounds of black oil sunflower seeds in less than a week. That is when you could get them for less than ten bucks a bag. We quit that. Right now we have an elderly neighbor couple that feed. I bet he goes through more than that. He buys eight dozen suet cakes when he goes to town. The woodpeckers eat four cakes each day.

BilletHead

[jdmidwest]

That's it. I did not see it on the MDC website where I was looking.

I used to feed bird feed, but switched to hen scratch which is milo, crack corn, and wheat. $8 a 50 lb bag this year now that grain cost is lower.

I only feed them heavy like this during a ground covering snow. I will be cutting back as the ground starts to show and let them get back to fending for themselves.

[GloryDaze]

And after my post about the Coopers Hawk, I walk in my house look in the back yard and BANG- there he is standing on top of a Mourning Dove having a nice afternoon snack. Wished I would have seen his attack.

[Chief Grey Bear]

So does the Dove!