A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 bird area ideas?

was hopeing ya could share your info,tips,& pics with me. so far alls i got is a bench,& a concret flower thing. i just stuck it on a log & put bird seed in the middle hole & water in the petals. should the water & food be in the same thing??? also i just put a suet cake in the big tree today.
http://photobucket.com

What a smart mother bird. She built a tiny nest, laid 5 eggs, knowing they would have to move out sooner than later.

No, the water and seed shouldn't be close enough so that when they splash in the water, which they WILL, the seeds get wet. 'Cause when them seeds get wet...they sprout IMMEDIATELY! (I microwave all my bird seed, about 8 lbs. a day, to keep it from sprouting.) One of the most entertaining things in my bird garden is the big bird bath. Sometimes it's so full of birds splashing that it looks like it is boiling over with birds! If you're gonna have a bird bath, you HAVE to keep it clean. I have to spray mine out about every 3 - 4 hours in the summer and re-fill it, because it is full of birds constantly, and they splash most of the water out, so I have to keep filling it. Since it's always wet around the bird bath, plant something around it that needs watered a lot! I also have a bird bath on the ground. It doesn't get as much traffic as the big one, though.

I make my own suet cakes, which the birds prefer. If I put a "store-bought" cake out and a homemade cake, the homemade one is gone before they will touch the other one. I go through 6 a day (the big ones), so you wouldn't believe the money I save making my own. They cost $1.20 each at the store, and mine cost about 10 - 15 cents each. That's $180. a month I save by making my own!

I have toys (parrot toys) hanging from the big maple tree in my bird garden, and the birds play and swing on them. I have perches for them, and keep cuddle bone and mineral blocks in an open feeder that has a roof over it to keep them dry. I also feed on the ground. My bird garden has mulch under the feeders, and I dump all Lola's cage leftovers (all the seeds and treats she dumps out!) there.

Sheri,
You posted that picture while I was typing my reply! That is AWESOME!!! What kind are they? I have SOOO many babies right now, but can't see in the nests like in your photo.

They're wrens. I don't know how to use my flash to get a good picture. Tonight all five have their heads hanging out of the nest. The mother doesn't stay in the nest anymore. She sits on a branch of a nearby tree.

Cindy
thanks for the info, ill have to get a bird bath & put it on the other side of the bench.i only have to clean it out once a day, i dont get many birds over there yet, cause there all hanging out in my woodsey area. i got mineral blocks down on my shopping list! i was thinking of hanging bird houses in the tree. neat idea of the toys. ill have to try that to.

Shari
i got baby birds in my garage, they flew for the first time today! well all but one. it tried, i got a pic of it,[ i dont have a dig-cam so ill have to wait & get em developed] but its so cute.

Sheri...That was a dang good picture! A flash would have probably scared them to death!

Sibyl...Is that bench for sitting on or feeding the birds on? If it's for sitting on, and it's anywhere close to where you feed the birds, it will have POOP all over it in record time! When you start a bird garden, it doesn't take long for word to get around! You will have a LOT of birds there ALL the time! Trust me!

Cindy,
the bench is for the birds. i thought of all the mess. so i made shure my hose could reach it! dose the mulch clean up good? im not shure if i want to put stones all around it or mulch.

I like mulch pretty good! The birds like to scratch in it, and dig down for some worms. I can just rake the mulch up every now and then and replace it. I get a whole truck load of mulch for 10 bucks here. Even when I have to take my little Toyota truck, it's still a good deal. But, when I take the Tundra I get twice as much, same price.

I'll try to find a photo of my bird garden to put on here.

Cindy, I LOVED the idea of putting bird toys in the trees

I've been trying to attract birds to my yard...and was doing a pretty good job of it too, til the squirrles found the feeders! I even tried buying the bird seed that is supposed to have something in it that the squirrles don't like, so they leave it alone...but the birds didn't like it, and the squirrles did! So that was a HUGE waste of money! I'm thinking about moving the feeder that's on a pole further away from a tree so that the squirrles can't jump from the tree to the feeder, and then greasing the pole really good with some axle grease! LOL I can just see those squirrles now!

My neighbor has a bird feeder thats squirrel-proof. It has a decorative cage surrounding it. When a sqirrel puts his weight on the feeder(or just grabs at it) it automatically closes and he cant get to the food. Birds dont have a problem though,as they weigh so little. He got it at the local Ace hardware store. Check at some of your smaller hardware stores and you might find one.

Karen

Karen
i have 5 cats, another good reason for the water hose to reach the bird area! free! free! free!

Cindy, loved the mulch info, i didnt think about em liking to scrach!

Funny story....
I had just filled up the bird feeder one day, and noticed the squirrles out there enjoying the free meal...

So I snuck out the door, grabbed the water hose, and managed to get right up to the feeder without him seeing me. I peeked around it and was eyeball to eyeball with him when I let loose with the hose!

Did you know that squirrles can actually look SHOCKED?!?

My daughter has a chipmonk that eats all her seed. My grand daughter and I put out a seed pack in a cage and the chipmonk at it ALL.

Annette. that was funny!

It's a good thing I live where there are no squirrels or other furry creatures at my bird feeders, because then I would have to feed them all! That'd be ME!!!
I have made 28 big suet cakes today, which should last for 4 days (hopefully!). All the baby birds in my bird garden trees have hatched, and their mamas have been bringing them to the feeders to teach them how to eat on their own. It's so funny to watch them! They will crowd around their mama with their mouths open wide, screaming for food, so she picks up something and places it in their mouths for awhile, then tries to get them to pick it up by themselves by NOT feeding them...pecking at them whenever they keep opening their mouths at her. It just takes about two days of this for them to start devouring everything on the ground by themselves, then they discover the hanging feeders and suet cakes. My crow brought 6 babies to the feeders for the first time a few days ago. I was thrilled! But, that means double or triple the food I have to put out! It's an all day thing, because I never let the seeds get down below the top holes in the feeders. (Had birds try to stick their heads in the holes to reach the food and died when they get their heads stuck!) Good thing I don't hardly ever have to leave the house, so I can be here all the time to make sure my birds are taken care of.

Now I need some squirrels!!!!

I'll gladly send you ALL of mine! Although I would imagine they wouldn't appreciate being shoved in a box and thrown around.....

Let's see...
...would we rather have "the BOX" or the water hose???!!

For some reason it didn't post what I wrote on my last reply, so here goes again!

How about using the hose to get them IN the box???

Speaking of birds...

Had I mentioned here before about our safe and toxic woods for pet bird perches and toys page at our website?

As for our yard, we have more birds, and nesting birds than ever before. When we moved in, we removed most of the trees as they all had disease or sunburn or were junk.

Now, after 4 years, there are many landing places.

Also, the birds not only like the bird bath, but they like our bubbling water rock 10 times more.

We have one of those drilled rocks, about 30 inches high, with a 400 gallon per hour pump (40 watts worth). Anyway, I put it on blocks in our pond, and filled it to the brim with washed pea gravel, then landscape fabric, then light color decorative gravel - copper tan quartzite. The rock has a bit of a flat spot on top, and the water is adjusted at about a 2" to 3" water spout.

Birds land on top and dip for long baths from the spouting water. And the side of the rock as a slight "lip" that makes a miniature waterfall where little birds land to take showers. They just stand on the gravel.

If you go to my site - Waterfeatures page - you will see my plant pot fountain. I'm thinking of adding a few more rocks in it so a few protrude out of the water so the birds will have a place to stand on there too.

Checked out your website.
Tell me all about Molly!!!!!
(PM if you want to.)

Molly is cool. She's my "wife's" bird. Molly only lets my wife and our young son pick her up.

I can get her on my finger if I need to, but need to be quick so she only has time to think about stepping up.

Amazingly smart. She has even trained us a few time, and we caught how she modified our behavior in feeding, and needed to reverse it so it's done our way.

The vocabulary picked up quite quick at 8 months. She's about a year and a half now.

Molly says "yum,yum,yum" "step up" "michael" "chips" "jan" "gimme a kiss" etc.. About 25 to 30 words worth right now.

The cutest critter of the bunch is the conure - fiesty little guy too - amazingly, smaller than a cockatiel, they speak too. About 4 words in his case. The blue and gold macaw on another landscape related page is still a baby and does not speak yet.

Oh yes - and if you have a "grey" - ever notice when they climb they take the most difficult and dramatic route?

I don't have a grey...
.....a grey has ME!!!

Did you have DNA test to make sure she's a she?

(Lola will be 6 on June 20th. A BIG party is planned!)