Giving back to Nature for Xmas

[Johnsfolly]

Have not seen a whole lot of birds in the yard. I hope that this shelf feeder will get more visiting the back yard a bit more. Yes those are yard sticks. Cheaper than wood slats and easy to measure !

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Great idea!

[jdmidwest]

Feed them and they will come.

Go to a local Farm Store and buy the grain to feed them.  I use Hen Scratch for the most part, cracked corn, milo, and wheat.  Cheapest thing out there now.  I also have a feeder of black oil sunflower to feed the Titmouse and others that like it.

Unless you have deep pockets, avoid the gourmet feeds in little bags.  40 lb bag of hen scratch was $7.99 and 20lbs sunflower seeds around $9.  I go thru a bag of hen scratch about every 2 weeks.

[Johnsfolly]

19 minutes ago, jdmidwest said:

  40 lb bag of hen scratch was $7.99 and 20lbs sunflower seeds around $9.  I go thru a bag of hen scratch about every 2 weeks.

If I get a bunch coming in, then I will get into making my own mix, which is pretty similar to what you provided.

[jdmidwest]

They will eat you out of a bunch of grain.

I have rabbits and deer come in to eat what they kick out on the ground.  Nothing goes to waste in nature.

Make sure you have a good air rifle handy, it seems to draw the feral cats.  A good supply of birds has cats coming from all around.  I opened the back door today and found one on the back step.  I bounced it off the boat and it did not leave.  Picked up a rock and nailed it good, it seemed to take the hint that time.  Lucky for it, its Christmas.  Any other day, it would be over the fence for coyote bait.

[Johnsfolly]

25 minutes ago, jdmidwest said:

They will eat you out of a bunch of grain.

my wife has been pretty understanding so far with the amount that i spend on grain and seed in a year.

[dan hufferd]

I had a couple bird feeders in the front yard.

We have an attached car port on our home, the north side is framed in and has windows in it, (you can see for like 20 mile to the north) the front yard is to the south, anyway, while the little birds were happily feeding, a large coopers hawk flew down and snatched a cardinal right off the feeder, then tried to make his 100mph get-a-way through one of those closed windows, both predator and prey were dead on the other side.

I think coopers hawks are one of the coolest raptors in Missouri .

I still have the bird feeder it is just placed at a better departure angle 

It goes to show that you never know why a guy has a bird feeder. 

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

I read a long time ago," the successful feeders will draw,predators.   You have to accept that. "

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, dan hufferd said:

a large coopers hawk flew down and snatched a cardinal right off the feeder, then tried to make his 100mph get-a-way through one of those closed windows, both predator and prey were dead on the other side.

I think coopers hawks are one of the coolest raptors in Missouri .

I still have the bird feeder it is just placed at a better departure angle 

It goes to show that you never know why a guy has a bird feeder. 

Dan - there were a couple of winters several years ago in Columbia that we would end up feeding a coopers hawk. As you can see our feeder was on our porch railing just outside of our sliding glass door.

If the hawk would fly parallel to the house, it was a clear flight path from the big oaks on the right side of our house, past the house, over the side yard and over the neighbor's yard on the left. So it would just fly by and pick one off. We could tell when the hawk was around by the birds, especially cardinals would hit the door trying to get away. had a couple of cardinals die, but not the hawk. When we got our chickens I was really worried about that hawk since our bantams would have been small enough to get its attention. But we hadn't seen that hawk(s) in a long time and never had an issue with the chickens and hawks.

 

[Johnsfolly]

13 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Make sure you have a good air rifle handy, it seems to draw the feral cats.  A good supply of birds has cats coming from all around.  I opened the back door today and found one on the back step.  I bounced it off the boat and it did not leave.  Picked up a rock and nailed it good, it seemed to take the hint that time.  Lucky for it, its Christmas.  Any other day, it would be over the fence for coyote bait.

We have had issues with feral cats. About 6 years ago someone dumped a whole litter of kittens in our neighborhood. I bought a live trap and began catching them when they would end up in my yard crapping everywhere and killing the rabbits and squirrels in the neighborhood. The first couple that I caught all had the same coloration, white with gray and black patches (I believe that I caught all 8 of that litter). Initially I would cart them to the animal shelter. They told me that if they were not adopted within a week that they would put them down. I had no issue with that policy, but I would only bring over ones that would meow when I went to the cage. If they hissed they would take a short one way trip in the car. It got that I had to go to different public land spots to feed the coyotes. Raccoons and opossums would get dropped off alive. In a period of 18 months I caught over 24 cats, 9 opossums and 8 raccoons. Only three of the cats were neighbor cats. I only brought four to the shelter and by the last one they were telling me that they could only give it 24 hours to be adopted due to too many cats being abandoned.

I would love to start a program to catch feral cats all over Columbia, but although necessary to control that population that would be a political firestorm. I strongly oppose those groups that want to catch, sterilize, and release them near where they caught them. Ok so they will no longer increase the population, but they are still out there killing songbirds and spreading diseases.

I would also advocate popping off English sparrows, starlings, cowbirds, etc. from my feeders for the same reason, overpopulation!

Ok down off the soapbox !