Backyard bird watching

[Raven]

Understood Dave.... on the Noise issue deal

but to understand the "letter of the LAW"

a noise disturbance is "measured" by how many decibels
is being generated... and for how long too....

and i would imagine it would require
a mere ten seconds for the predatory bird
to hear it and FLEE the area....

[2na]

Raven, that blue jay doesn't have a throat problem; it is imitating the hawk to scare the competition. I've noticed it is not just every blue jay that does it, just a very select few. I've had one particular bird nesting on my property for the last couple of years making that call from his favorite perches in the general area of his nests. I had heard that distant call for years and always thought it was a hawk!

This seems to be the time of year that most of the posters on this thread start feeding, but I'm the opposite. I only feed in the early spring to early summer - once the feeders start getting clogged with fledged sparrows I'm done. I'll be closing up my cottage soon (then back to Quincy for the winter, where I would just attract pigeons and squirrels) and out here in the wilds of Truro there is so much natural food for them right now (berries, seeds, etc.) that I thing that it is smart to put out feed and get them dependent on a food supply then stop - I don't think that would help them make it through the winter. But once March arrives I go at it full bore. The beauty of feeding in the spring is that I'm outdoors all of the time getting my place (gardens cottages splitting wood for heat burning brush etc.) ready to go so I have learned to ID birds through their calls. It is amazing the range that the blue jay has (I like the one that sounds like a creaky door hinge). I've learned that another bird with a surprising variety of vocalizations is the goldfinch.

By the time the survivors have made it to spring they are fearless when it comes to feeding - I have literally had them land on the feeder as I was putting it up. And as the berries and seeds that were so plentiful in the fall are exhausted my feeding stations are a big hit, so my yard becomes a cacophony of bird calls. Nothing nicer than after the end of a long day doing yard work in the spring after the long crappy winter ahead than to sit down with a beer in the middle of my feeders and taking in the birds doing their thing. Only three months or so to go -

[Raven]

for drawing the more "exotic" birds in any environment

so, you (2NA) and Clammer and others who have only pesky
sparrows ought to give it a shot and feed some wood peckers and Nuthatches for a while. (strictly suet)

Birds need fat to burn in the dead of winter and insects and grubs provide that for most of the year but not in winter.

now if you have a large amount of starlings that normally are living off the three fast food dumpsters then its a lost cause.

I've had twenty gold finches sitting on a 5 x 5 cube of suet ....still kicking myself that i didn't get that on film and bluebirds and orioles in the spring that never would have been there if not for the suet.

[Backbeach Jake]

Mike I feed birds at my place the same way. In the Early Summer there is nothing more enjoyable to me than to sit with a good view of my feeder and a book and watch all the birds come in. I try to discourage the squirrels and they get POed that I'm there. We had Cedar waxwings last season,hadn't seen one in years.