Clean your wild bird feeders

The Compost Bin

Compost isn't "exciting" but then again if you have time to wait it's also "free". If we add in the word "necessary" for your garden then it's probably a no brainer for you to create some type of compost pile.

Where can you get a new compost bin? Well You can buy prebuilt composters, or you can make one yourself. Finally you could just throw your grass clippings, leaves, egg shells, banana peals, and expired veggies on the ground. All that organic material on the ground would eventually compost. It just won't be as fast as with a real compost bin.

Most compost bins have a way to aerate all six side (top, bottom, & the 4 sides) of the structure. All bins need to have a way to allow water to enter. Some but not all have a way to rotate the decaying matter that will ultimately become the compost. 

Those three items are all you really need for compost: 1)Various Organic Matter, 2)Water, and 3) Rotation of the Material.

What brought about this blog post today is I'm in repair mode of  my home built compost bin. You can see by the picture below while doing the repair I removed a giant mound of compost. 

The cause of my repair was the base. Although these 2x4 pressure treated base boards seen below were once very sturdy some of then have turned into compost as well. This caused half of base to collapse. Given that I need air circulation on the bottom to make compost I needed to make the repair. 

My home built compost bin does not rotate which means every few weeks, typically after it rains I go and stir up the contents. Not ideal but it works. I created a big front door. This allows me to take a shovel and rotate the contents.

My bin is pretty simple. It is a 4"x4"x4" structure. All of it was made with pressure treated wood but as pic#2 shows that only last so long. I basically built it with with four main 4"x4" posts. I then took 4 premade pickets sections (typically used on decks) and screwed them in the posts. The door is also a picket section on hinges. 

Keeping the compost inside the unit I used plastic chicken wire lined on the inside of the wooden pickets. This roll of product was used single ply on the sides and I double-plied it on the bottom. After 15years most of it is still in good shape. Even though the bottom boards rotted out the plastic chicken wire looked really good. Up until the point I ripped it out to get at the boards. The chicken wire on the sides is in good shape.

I'll relevel the whole unit. It's a little tilted right now causing the gate not to latch properly. For the base this time I'll use composite wood with plastic chicken wire on top. I'll also place a small piece of 4mil black plastic rap between the composite beam holding structure and the pressure treated pickets. This will keep the support board of the pickets drier and allow them to last another 15 years.

Some of the compost in the big pile I will throw back into the refurbished bin. This will help jump start the new compost. I will take the rest  and use it for a planting bed next year. 

Composting isn't exciting but then again it doesn't take much time either. Why pay your local garbage man to pick up items in your lawn that could be composted for free?

Here's another way to look at it... Why pay to have grass clipping, leaves, old potted plants, wood chips, etc hauled off to the landfill? You're probably paying that local garbage man to pick up your composted material - so he can then sell it to a company like Scotts - so they can make compost - that you then buy at Lowe's or Home Depot.  

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

Stop the Mess - Install Seed Catchers

Feeding and enjoying the wild birds in your backyard is supposed to be fun and relaxing. However it can become a chore to clean beneath the feeders. 

On the ground seed husks collect along with discarded bird seed. You may have noticed our feathered friends pick through the seed for their favorite morsel. Some of the seed is actually meant to be chucked to the ground by the songbirds for the ground birds to eat. These include gains like millet and corn. If you let this pile of seeds and husks collect too long you'll have a mess that must be cleaned up to prevent diseases. 

There are two easy fixes to avoid cleaning up the mess. These are:

1) Use a no-mess seed like the PatioWise we sell here at the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek. This product only uses delicious seed with no hulls. Basically, everything gets eaten, even if it gets thrown to the ground!

2) Another simple solution is to add a seed tray, or seed catcher like the two shown below. Notice in the picture there are two small plates attached to the feeders. These catch all the seed before it hits the ground. You can simply tip the plate to collect the seed in the plate and put it back in the feeder!

Seed trays come in many different shapes and sizes. We have some in the store over 22" in length. There are large round ones and square ones. There are hanging trays that attached with hooks to your feeders and ones that mount to your shepherd's hooks. In other words there is probably one for you. 

So don't despair, let nature relax you while keeping your ground under the feeders clean. Buy a seed catcher and stop doing a least this one little chore.

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

Habits of Eastern and Western Monarch Butterflies

I found this article in phys.org. Interesting mating habits and possible ways to save the western monarch which is currently in steep decline.

Interesting article on habits of Western and Eastern Monarch Butterflies.https://t.co/BHMHwtKEuD

— The Best Nest of GA (@TheBestNest_GA) August 3, 2020

Nectar Guard Tips

Here's a real quick Pro Tip:

If you have bees around your hummingbird feeder, or worse bees and flies floating in your nectar there is an easy fix for this. At least with the line of Aspect Hummingbird Feeders.

I like the window feeder pictured below. However as soon as I put it up I found flies floating in the nectar. I know what the issue is... the holes for the Aspect Jewel Box feeder are too big thus flies and bees can get to the nectar. Luckily Aspects created a product to solve this problem.

The product is a set of Nectar Guard Tips. Basically you put these small rubber tips on the inside of your feeder. The underside, beneath the ports, have little pieces of plastic ready to receive the tips. I simply squeezed the tip onto the plastic. Done: No more floating flies!

Enjoy the hummingbirds this year and change your nectar often.

Hummingbirds and Colors

I just had to pass this along. Fascinating!

ScienceAlert: Hummingbirds Can See Colours We Can't Even Imagine, Experiment Reveals.https://t.co/p5vof6Wcaf

via @GoogleNews

— The Best Nest of GA (@TheBestNest_GA) June 16, 2020

Contaminents in Western Milkweed

Interesting article on contamination of the western milkweed varieties. Even though we are on the east coast we probably have the same issue.

Milkweed, only food source for monarch caterpillars, ubiquitously contaminated https://t.co/PnirO73CxA via @physorg_com

— The Best Nest of GA (@TheBestNest_GA) June 11, 2020

Millet Gets a Bad Rap

When you own a wild bird seed store (like I do) you gain a preference to particular seeds and seed blends. On the other hand you develop prejudices for others. Preference vs. Prejudice = Seeds vs. Grains.

In the layman's world, in which I live, the difference between a seed and a grain comes from its shell. Seed tend to have shells that can be removed, think sunflower, and grains have an outer coating that is difficult to remove, think corn.

Also in the layman's world seeds are relatively expensive compared to grains. Almost by a factor of 2x. So you can immediately tell by price if your seed blend has a lot of grain in it. The more expensive the wild bird seed blend the more seeds and nuts in that blend. The less expensive wild bird seed blends will have mainly corn, millet, wheat, etc.

One such grain that gets a bad rap is millet.

Male and female cardinals enjoying millet.

Millet is a very small round seed that is plentiful in the world. It is basically a grassy weed. There are several different varieties but all are inexpensive. Many birds will eat millet (and many humans as well, it is considered a "cereal grain"). Cardinals, Chipping Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Cowbirds any many, many more will eat this grain. I throw about 3 large handfuls on the patio everyday.

Chipping sparrow eating millet

The bad rap with millet stems from its ability to grow quickly. The issue for most low end seed blends is that the bag is fill with so much millet and other grains that there are not nearly enough birds to eat it all. Thus... The "grassy weed" begins to grow and prosper!

I did this video years ago to show just how fast millet can grow. In about 5 days it's time to mow!



So, inconclusion, millet does get a bad rap. It's not that birds will not eat it, in fact many, many wild birds love it, it is the fact that if it is NOT eaten it will immediately germinate (i.e.: Produce Weeds).

My advice, if you want more birds, particularly ground birds that don't come to feeders, due to their size or other factors, is to purchase millet separately.  Just take a handful or two everyday and throw it on the ground. You can get a pound of it at my store for way under a $1 and a pound of millet is a lot of grain.

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

A Brown-headed Cowbird Invading a Bluebird's Nest

There is a black bird out there called a Brown-headed Cowbird. You can easily spot the bird. They're about cardinal sized with a jet black body and a head that is completely brown. The cowbird is native to the US but a lot of folks consider it to be a problem child.

Brown-headed Cowbird

The cowbird is considered a problem because it is also a "brood parasite." This means the female cowbird takes NO responsibility raising it's own chicks. In fact it will enter a nest box, remove one egg from the box and then... lay it's own egg.

The interesting part is the actual birdhouse owner (think bluebird, nuthatch, etc.) will raise the cowbird as part of its own brood. Most birds can't recognize that a different bird's egg is in its clutch. Thus it will raise it until it fledges and learns to feed itself.

If you are in your backyard and you see a bluebird feeding a cowbird you now know why.

Yesterday I was taking a picture of one of my nesting boxes and this brought up this blog post (see pic below). The cowbird egg is in the top right. I left it there. There are rules to native birds, even though the brown-headed cowbird is considered a pest, it is native and cannot be destroyed. (Not that I would destroy any of God's work but that another story.)

3 bluebird eggs and 1 cowbird egg

Nature is beautiful. Bringing nature to your backyard is the goal of our retail store "The Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek" Let nature bring peace to your hectic life.

Crossvine: The Perfect Plant for the Arriving Hummingbirds

Crossvine

CROSSVINE: Bignonia capreolata

It's April 10, 2020 and spring here in NE Atlanta is on full display. With the beginning of spring the local backyard wild bird enthusiast are patiently waiting on the 1st hummingbirds of the season.

In early spring and throughout the early summer the ruby-throated hummingbirds are making their annual migration to the Boreal forest in central Canada. They pass right through the Johns Creek area starting around April 1st. You can almost set your clock to it.

Early spring is also when the weather is finally warming up, allowing us to get to our gardens. Garden Centers are packed (even with the Covid 19 virus). Nature is our way to sooth the soul. So let's unwind with nature by putting wild birds and plants together to start a hummingbird garden.

The plant you see in the picture is a climbing vine called a "Crossvine." I love this plant because while the other popular hummingbird plants like sages and salvias are just coming out of the ground this plant is in full bloom at the beginning of spring... just in time for the ruby throated hummingbird.

The plant requires little care. Mine is located in full sun (springtime) yet it is in partial sun during the summer. The crossvine grabs anything it can find so mine is crawling up a tree limb and to the left it's invading a trumpet vine (a summer blooming hummingbird plant).

The crossvine will bloom for a short time. Typically by Mother's Day it is finished. A late hard freeze will also kill the flowers but won't hard the plant. The crossvine will stay green all year long. It doesn't go completely dormant in the winter.

It's early spring, if you are considering a hummingbird garden this year go to your local garden center and check out a crossvine. Unwind and let nature sooth your soul.

Squirrel Buster Plus - Break it down for cleaning.

Tap, Tap, Tap...

What the heck, this wild bird is constantly tapping at the window…

We are in the middle of winter and getting our 1st snow here in NE Atlanta. The store is fairly quiet giving me the chance to cover a topic that is about to happen all over the Northern Hemisphere.

The male northern cardinal has know to tap on windows until his beak bleeds.

In a few short weeks it will be nesting season. Here in Johns Creek, GA it all starts right around March 1st. Very soon the chickadees and the bluebirds will start fighting for nesting boxes and the season will begin. 

This beautiful, bountiful season where broods will be hatched, chicks will grow, and fledglings take their 1st flight has but one little downfall.

"I can't keep that darn wild bird from tapping on my window!"

Our customers will start coming in with the same complaint all season long especially concerning bluebirds and cardinals. These particular birds will come to a window or a car mirror and just start pecking. They will peck, peck, peck well past the time their beaks start to bleed. It's obviously a stressful time for the bird and it worries the homeowner to death.

The problem here is that modern window manufacturers have learned how to keep UV rays, moisture, and noise all on the outside of a window and they've learned to keep home air-conditioning and heating inside the house. But... They have not learned or haven't chosen to produce a window with a matt finish. All (that I know of) current windows manufactured around the world are given a glossy, shiny finish.

This window finish reflects everything that comes in near contact with it. Including... you guessed it, that crazy wild bird.

As it turns out the crazy bird isn't so crazy. In fact what is actually happening is that the bird is protecting it's territory. As it flies over its personal territory it notices another bird encroaching on its real estate. That just can't happen during nesting season. After nesting season, before nesting season, no problem but during - during nesting season their can be only one male cardinal per location or one female bluebird per area.

The result is the bird sees the "other" bird in the window and stops to attack it by pecking at it all day long. Naturally you've probably guessed that the "other" wild bird is actually the same bird's reflection.

So how do you stop this issue? Simple... put something on the window that will break the sheen. Crumple up some saran wrap and stick it up there or "paint" the glass with artificial spray-on white Christmas tree flocking (we actually sell this, it is call "stop window attack" by Window Alert). Or, you could simple put up a piece of cardboard on the outside of the window. All these methods and more work.

Be creative the only thing you have to do it break window's sheen so it doesn't reflect the bird own image. For more information stop by your local wild bird store, I'm sure they have heard of and and have already solved this issue.

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

Add a Little Beauty to your Backyard...

Add a little beauty to your backyard and support the Monarch butterflies at the same time.

I know it is only January 27th but another way to look at it is.... it's almost February! Which mean spring here in the NE Atlanta area is just 45 days away!

It will be nice to get back into the backyard and start the new garden. This year I will be focusing expanding the milkweed plot. Just in case you didn't know milkweed is one of the only plants that monarch butterflies eat. They are inexpensive plants and the one we sell here at our store is native to Georgia. It is actually named "Butterfly Milkweed" or officially as "Asclepias tuberosa."

Butterfly milkweed needs full sun with good drainage. This particular milkweed version only gets to be about 1.5 ft. tall. It will bloom in the first year with a very nice yellow/orange flower. The bloom is late spring through the summer. The plant is a perennial so it should come back year after year. It may also spread in your backyard to additional areas.

One word of warning, the sap of all milkweeds, including butterfly milkweed are an irritant to your skin so wear gloves.

I mentioned that they are fairly inexpensive plants to purchase. At our Wild Bird Center we sell Butterfly Milkweed seedlings for $1.99, Quart sized for $3.99, and when available gallon sized plants for  $6.99.

Butterfly Milkweed for the Monarch Butterflies

If you are looking for a small plant that will give you a beautiful orange bloom then consider butterfly milkweed. You'll be doing the Monarch Butterfly a huge favor at the same time.

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

Have A Little Patience When Changing Your Wild Bird Seed

One of the advantages of owning a wild bird seed store is I get to try out a lot of different things. Such as, occasionally a feeder will be returned for one reason or another... these typically end up in my backyard.

Another item that can collect around here are broken bags of bird seed. Usually I'll just tape them up and mark them down. Sometimes I'll bring it home and fill one of the feeders. Which leads me to the nature of this post.

Blue Jay taking a raw peanut

The feeder above is one of my favorites, it's a "fly through" feeder that is big enough for any bird (including crows). The feeder holds right at one day's worth of food. I typically put a  50/50 mixture of roasted peanuts and sunflower chips in it everyday.

I chose this mixture because I want to give some of the bigger birds like the blue jay a food that naturally attracts them. Put out some raw or roasted peanuts and you'll be the blue jay's best friend.

Once the birds get used to the idea that peanuts will be served they come. This along with all of the feeders in the yard become part of the birds local food route. When customers come into our Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek they often speak about "My Birds."

This term is actually correct. These are yours and your neighbors birds. For the season or in the case of the northern cardinal and blue jay these birds will stay in your neighborhood for the entire year. Some may stay their entire life. So what happens when you suddenly change seeds???

Don't Worry, But Have a Little Patience

#1 The birds on the neighborhood route may not like the new seed. In my case I switched to a "berry blend" with lots of everything in it. More birds - right? Actually wrong, all the seed was eaten but the berries where left behind. There is nothing wrong with the seed, it's just the birds on the route weren't looking for berries, they want nuts! You have to have a little patience when changing seeds. It takes a while for all the birds in the backyard, and in your neighborhood to realize there is something new and yummy in the feeder.

#2 Don't worry about the birds starving because you changed the seed. Have a little patience. They may not have gotten their fill at your house but you are not the only stop on the route. Neighbors, fields, pastures, wood piles, trees that drop nuts, trees that drop fruit. All this is bird food. They will not starve.

Male Norther Cardinal on Tube Feeder

So don't worry if you change seeds, don't worry if you go on vacation, don't worry if you run out of seed, the birds will come... They just have to put you on their specific food route.

Converter Nest Box

Converter nesting boxes have been around for years. They look like a normal birdhouse during the nesting season with (in this case) a 1 1/2" hole for our lovely eastern bluebirds that will start nesting here in the NE. Atlanta, GA area in March.

 A standard "converter nesting box" 

These boxes "convert" during the winter to a "roosting" box by flipping the squirrel guard downward to the lower hole. Yep, these boxes have 2 holes drilled in them. One up, for nesting season, and one down for roosting season. 

Converter nesting box in the "roosting position"

The theory is that heat rises so boxes contain perches on the inside to allow the birds to sleep in a warm confined space. These boxes also contain vents that can close to keep the cold weather outside.

Vent at upper left is closed, perches for roosting shown

The boxes have a clean out on one side while also allowing the 2nd side to open with a bird saving acrylic window to allow you to safely peak in at the chicks. 

Clear acrylic plate to allow you to safely view the chicks

Pretty neat idea! However, here at the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek we have noticed and heard from customers one disturbing trend from the newest iteration of these boxes. That is the long squirrel guard is too loose to hold the board in place. Thus it may slip, and accidentally move to block the birds from leaving the nest. For some reason (which didn't occur in the past) the new screws used to hold the board in place can't get tight enough. Obviously this is bad!

We have stopped carrying these boxes until a solution is implemented by the manufacturer. Our in-house solution at the store is to put a 2nd "set screw" in that will provide a 2nd point of contact to hold the squirrel guard board in place. This simple solution of adding an additional screw to the converter box solves the issue.

2nd set screw ready to be inserted to keep the squirrel guard firmly in place

We recommend that if you purchased a converter nesting box from anywhere that you immediately place the 2nd screw in place BEFORE nesting season begins.