I’ve always liked feeding the birds, but until now haven’t had much luck with it here in the city. The feeders at our other house attracted mostly house sparrows with the occasional fly-by of something more interesting, but even a thistle seed feeder didn’t do much. Perhaps it had something to do with the numbers of walkers going by our yard, or the heavy dog population, or something. I don’t know, but what seemed to be an ideal feeding site just–wasn’t. Lots of cover nearby, easy to avoid hawks, etc, etc, etc. I resorted to watching crows harvest walnuts and drop them on the pavement so that cars would break the shells.
Then we moved to this house eight years ago. The more time I spent in my office area that looks out on our big, relatively isolated backyard, the more I noticed that despite the lack of feeders, we had a larger bird variety here. Little bit less dense, more open setting, it was surprising. But there was definitely a finch family and year-round hummingbirds (who liked to perch in the cherry tree and sing a buzzy evening hummer song on summer evenings).
Nine months ago, DH got me some bird feeders. And oh my, the circus began. For the first time since I was a kid, I’m seeing goldfinches on a regular basis. Bushtits swarm the suet. Crows, jays and juncos war over suet. I had to put out corncobs for the squirrels.
The bushtit horde.
The finches.
I like watching my little birdies. And now I need to go feed the ravenous maw. East winds in wintertime. Little tweeties need all the energy they can get.
