Bird Feeding Basics

Staying home to be safe from a virus? A wonderful way to while away some hours is to watch colorful songbirds and their antics at a bird feeder. The following is a discussion of bird feeders and bird seed and how to attract the widest variety of birds with the least waste of seed.

Birds that may visit your yard are generally grouped as ground feeders or tree feeders. Common ground feeders are mourning dove, brown thrasher, and chipping sparrows and all prefer to eat white proso millet, with a few exceptions. This can be spread on a platform type feeder or even on the patio.

Goldfinches and cardinals love a blend of black oil sunflower, sunflower hearts, and safflower dispensed in a squirrel-proofed tube feeder. Photo by Jody Walthall.

Pine siskins visiting a nyjer seed sock in winter. Photo by Jody Walthall.

Tree feeding birds such as Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, cardinal, blue jay, downy woodpecker, and red-bellied woodpecker prefer sunflower seed. A mixture of 80 percent black oil sunflower and 20 percent white millet would be the most economical way to attract a variety of birds. Remember, the millet must be white proso. Birds will not eat red millet, milo, or wheat, which are often used as cheap fillers in inexpensive bird food. These seeds will go to waste, thrown out of your feeder by birds, your money rotting on the ground.

To go a step beyond the basic seed, there are a few other types of food birds will enjoy. I offer these other foods in varying methods. For instance, a premium mix of black oil sunflower, safflower, and sunflower hearts is placed in a vertical tube feeder on a squirrel and raccoon proofed pole. It is easily accessed by chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatch, and woodpeckers. Below the tube is a large tray where cardinals, mourning dove, blue jays, and brown thrashers feel more comfortable. For these birds, split peanuts, white proso millet, and sunflower hearts are offered. In my yard, titmice and blue jays select split peanuts above all else. We are always pleased when a summer tanager or a Baltimore oriole flies in to grab a peanut.

Also, on the tray or in a small cage under it mounted to the pole, a piece of suet cake is placed. Suet cakes are favored by birds that eat insects. Suet cakes primarily consist of beef fat mixed with corn meal, though some may also contain bird seed. More birds will utilize suet cakes in winter when insects are less abundant. At my feeder, the suet is used by bluebirds, Carolina wrens, and four species of warblers: pine, orange-crowned, yellow-rumped, and yellow-throated. The bluebirds and all four warblers only use suet in winter, so I supply it sparingly in summer. Interestingly, the orange-crowned and yellow-rumped spend their summers far to the north between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay.

Another specialty seed, nyjer, was formerly sold as thistle seed. It is a type of tiny sunflower seed, not a seed from thistle plants. Goldfinch, who are winter migrants, may be seen at feeders from January to April and enjoy nyjer seed. Nyjer is imported from India or Africa and may be expensive and requires a special feeder or thistle sock to dispense. Goldfinch will be happy to be fed American grown sunflower hearts or black oil sunflower in an ordinary feeder. Goldfinch and pine siskins can often come in large numbers and may overrun your sunflower feeder. They can be drawn away to a thistle sock to make room for the other birds at the tube feeder.

Bird food will attract squirrels and sometimes raccoons. Raccoons usually visit at night and are known to carry feeders away. Investing in a quality squirrel/raccoon baffle will save lots of money in the long run. Squirrels will still get plenty of food that is dropped by birds as they are feeding. It is best to not feed raccoons.

If you are unable to protect your feeder, try using only safflower seed. Most squirrels will not eat it, yet chickadees, titmice, and cardinals will.

If you decide to feed birds, you have a responsibility to keep the feeders clean and the seed fresh. You will need to clean feeders regularly during rainy spells. Be sure to purchase feeders that are easy to clean. We use hot soapy water to wash, then rinse with a mild water/bleach solution and then rinse again with water. We opt to have just one main feeder/tray set-up. The more feeders, the more time spent cleaning.

This feeder has it all: a tube feeder for sunflower blends, trays for a variety of specialty seeds and peanuts, a suet feeder, and a raccoon/squirrel guard. Photo by Jody Walthall.

Do not forget that birds also need water. Provide clean water in a bird bath. Flush water out every three days to keep it clean and to eliminate mosquito larvae and disease organisms. The bowl should have gradually sloping sides and not be too deep. Birds enjoy splashing in shallow pools. Yesterday we had at least 15 robins vying for a spot in the bath. A large flock had descended into a holly tree to feast on its abundant berries and the birds quenched their thirst and bathed in our two bird baths.

If you have neighborhood cats, place feeders and baths high and in a relatively open area. Cats kill millions of songbirds every year, as well as other wildlife. Perhaps you can talk to your neighbors and encourage them to keep the cats indoors, where they will be safe from cars and coyotes.

Watching birds from the comfort of your home is a great way to get away from the television or computer. Birds are beautiful and their interactions with each other are fascinating. Try locating the feeder close to your window yet far enough away to prevent squirrels from leaping to it from the windowsill.

You will begin to observe seasonal changes at your feeder. Winter brings migrants from the far north. In North Florida and South Georgia feeders commonly attract a dozen species all year. In winter, five northern migrants may visit your feeder. Many more birds will use a bird bath. Pick a good viewing window, set up your feeding station, settle into a comfy chair with tea or coffee, and enjoy!

Woodland Wildflowers for Native Pollinators

The sweet smell of rue anemone may help attract pollinators, such as queen bumble bees emerging from hibernation. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

The delicate blossoms of woodland wildflowers are often the first splashes of color after our mild winters in Tallahassee. Woodland wildflowers, some known as spring ephemerals, thrive on the floor of rich, undisturbed woodlands and are a welcome sight for early-emerging pollinators at a time when nectar and pollen sources are scarce.

Woodland wildflowers are a welcome sight for early-emerging pollinators at a time when nectar and pollen sources are scarce. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

These plants have a small window of sunshine between frost and leaf-out to emerge, flower, become pollinated, and produce seed. Once trees develop leaves and shade the ground for the remainder of the season, ephemerals will go to seed and fade into the background until the following year.

We don’t often associate woodland plants with pollinators because they flower in the shade where their pollinators go unnoticed. Pollination among most deciduous forests is primarily accomplished by the insect orders Hymenoptera (native bees and solitary wasps), Coleoptera (beetles), and Diptera (syrphid flies). Woodland wildflowers compete for these pollinators by offering nectar and pollen rewards using various shapes, colors, smells, and staggering bloom times.

Some spring ephemerals have a musty scent, such as trillium, that attract beetles and flies for pollination. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

Some flowers shift towards the sun to attract bees and butterflies, while others orient their flowers near the ground to allure less gregarious insects, like beetles, ants, flies, or tiny ground-nesting bees. Some plants take this evolution strategy further by producing foliage that shelters their own flowers from the sun of the increasingly longer days of springtime. Perhaps they also do this to provide a protective area for pollinators to safely scout out their flowers.

Smell may also play a role in attracting pollinators. Many of the plant species that are pollinated by bees have a sweet odor such as phlox, rue anemone, and wild violets. These plants are important sources of food for hungry queen bumble bees as they emerge after a long hibernation through the winter. Other spring ephemerals have a musty scent like jack-in-the-pulpit, wild ginger, and trillium that attract a different group of pollinators like beetles and flies.

Every February into March, I am swept off my feet by the graceful multiplying appearance of delicate wildflowers occurring throughout the woodland beds at Native Nurseries. Masses of bright violet-blue phlox, yellow trout lilies, mysterious trillium, bursts of columbine, and the subtle glows of rue anemone and bloodroot have re-seeded and established themselves over the years.

Bursts of colombine blossoms appear in late winter and early spring in the woodland beds at Native Nurseries. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

Not only do woodland wildflowers add a beautiful burst of early-season color to your yard, they provide critical early nectar for our native pollinators. Even if you have a shady, wooded landscape, you can still help pollinators by selecting plants that flower at different times and attract a diversity of species throughout the growing season. Many insects will be happy to find them blooming in your garden.

Plant a Native Tree this Winter to Provide Biodiversity in Your Yard

I live in a grove of large stately live oaks. Only one is technically on our property; the grove continues across the road and in adjacent yards, even down the road a piece. We are also blessed with some large pines, though we have lost a few to lightning strikes.

We are on a slope that runs down towards a drainage way that used to be a creek. I imagine this was originally a mature mixed pine/hardwood forest, and eventually pasture, with well distributed live oaks and pines until time of development in the 1960s.

We are not trying to restore what used to be here, but our goal has been to diversify the native tree species in our yard for the benefit of wildlife. When the rose-of-Sharon tree planted by previous owners was declining due to old age, we replaced it with a blue beech, a native tree with pretty fall color, gorgeous muscle-like bark, and unique seed structures. In addition, native caterpillars utilize its leaves which are then eaten by birds, lizards, spiders, and others.

At the edge of the patriarch live oak in our front yard, we planted red buckeye, a small tree with red tubular flowers in mid-March, timed perfectly for the return of migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds. We also planted a sassafras tree that is a larval food plant for the spicebush swallowtail.

This American beech tree sprouted from a beech nut within in a bag of leaves used as mulch in Legare’s yard. Photo by Donna Legare.

We utilize every space available. Between our driveway and our neighbor to the west, we placed a Chickasaw plum and some blueberry bushes and allowed American beautyberry and elderberry to sprout up on their own (free plants ‘planted’ by the birds).

One year for Christmas, I asked for an American beech tree, which we planted in our back ‘woods’ along with a spruce pine to replace a large loblolly pine that had died. We selected spruce pine because of its shade tolerance.

Another year I collected bags of leaves from a neighbor down the road. The bags were filled with golden beech leaves, which I used as mulch in a bed adjacent to our road. It unexpectedly contained seeds and the following year an American beech sprouted. This is one of the hardwoods that probably graced this slope before agriculture. It is a beauty every fall with its golden leaves which persist into winter. When mature, both American beech trees will sport beech nuts and birds will have a feast on these seeds. Another free plant!

One side of our front yard is a pollinator garden which requires good sun, so we have selected smaller trees in its vicinity – sparkleberry, rusty blackhaw, flatwoods plum, parsley hawthorn, hoptree, and fringe tree. A red cedar was selected to screen a telephone pole and streetlight from our front porch view.

Another freebie is a native persimmon that popped up on the east side of our house in the border between us and neighbors. It is now a good 15 feet tall.

By now you are getting the point that if you have beds with leaves in them around existing trees and shrubs, the seeds of native plants will germinate, many of which may be quite valuable to wildlife. The trick is to learn what these plants look like when they are seedlings. Invasive plants such as the trees Ligustrum and Chinese tallow will also sprout and will need to be pulled up. This is easy to do when they are seedlings. Likewise, some native plants will need to be pulled. We have a black cherry seedling flagged under our live oak tree. It was most likely planted by a bird who sat on a limb of the live oak after it had eaten and digested a wild cherry. Out popped the seed, conveniently fertilized with bird poop. However, it is far too shady for this cherry to thrive here. We will move it this winter to a sunnier spot in the back yard.

Our New Year’s resolution every year is to increase the percentage of native plants in our yard. You would think we would be running out of room after nearly 30 years. At first, we made room for native trees and shrubs by removing invasive plants like Nandina, Ligustrum, and female Podocarpus and replacing aging but desirable non-native trees with young natives. Then we started squeezing trees into existing beds, finding space here and there, creating layers of native plants. We planted overstory trees like the American beech, understory trees like blue beech and silverbell, large native shrubs like arrowwood viburnum and spicebush, and then wildflowers and native grasses. All of these are worked in and around some beautiful old camellias, sasanquas, and azaleas, planted by the original owners of the property.

We are senior citizens now, but we keep on planting. We prefer to plant trees in three-gallon pots. For one thing it is easier on the person doing the planting (smaller hole to dig), but mainly we find that the less time trees have spent in pots, the healthier they are and the faster they take off if planted in the correct conditions and planted properly. Bareroot trees planted in winter are particularly robust.

This winter, we are replacing another aging non-native tree with two natives in our backyard ‘woods’, the black cherry mentioned above and a white oak. I have always wanted a white oak and wish I had planted one 30 years ago! It will have pretty fall color, eventual acorns, and will provide insects, primarily caterpillars, for nesting birds. Over 300 caterpillar species are known to utilize oak trees in the Tallahassee area.