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. 

How to Attract the Widest Variety of Wild Birds

It's the holiday season, Thanksgiving is over, now the worrying starts... What do I give to my wild bird loving mom and dad this Christmas?

When mom and dad already have a lot of feeders in their yard we can still help to add to their collection of birds. We do this by attracting more varieties using specific food with specific feeders. Let's  go through a couple of examples.

Female northern cardinal on a "tube" feeders

Tube feeders like the one pictured above are the most common type of mixed seed feeders. They typically have 2 to 6 feeding ports. Each port is just big enough to handle a typical seed mix of millet, sunflower hearts, black oil sunflower, peanuts and safflower. This wide variety of grains and seeds gives the user the best chance to get a large variety of birds. Typically cardinals and smaller birds can handle this type of tube feeder.

Eastern bluebird family eating mealworms

Probably the second type of feeder we get asked about here at the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek is a live or dried mealworm feeder. Feeding mealworms is an easy way to separate bluebirds, warblers, wrens, grey catbirds, robins and many other wild birds. A mealworm feeder is typically small and holds just a few ounces of worms. Mealworms can be served both live and/or dried. The birds will eat them both, however, if you start with live mealworms it can be hard to get the birds to switch to the dried worms at a later date.

Blue Jay with a roasted peanut

I personally like the blue jay. I love hearing its call just before it hits the feeder. In my backyard here in the NE Atlanta suburbs I separate the blue jay by offering roasted peanut halves and raw in-shell peanuts in the "fly through" feeder you see pictured above. If you supply a platform or fly through feeder and you fill it with nuts all your larger birds and "bully birds" like the jay will come to it instead of the smaller tube feeder which is harder for them to eat from. Along with crows, blackbirds, grackles and blue jays the morning doves, woodpeckers, titmouse, nuthatches and cardinals will come to this feeder all day long. It is just too easy for them to use.

Suet feeder with a brown thrasher

Another feeder to gain a larger variety of birds is a "suet" feeder. Suet is an animal fat that has been rendered to become hard. It is mixed with a variety seed, grains, berries, or mealworms to try to attract different birds. Suet feeders typically attract birds that normally don't go to seed feeder. As an example the brown thrasher shown above is usually on the ground rummaging through the grass and leaves. Gray catbirds, thrushes, downy woodpeckers, will regularly visit the suet feeder while ignoring the seed feeder right next to it.

There are many other types of feeders at your local wild bird store. Squirrel Busters, caged feeders, platform, ranches, hoppers, seed cakes and many other. Visit your local store to find the right one for your mom and dad this holiday season.

Where have all the birds gone?

Hermit Thrush in our backyard in NE Atlanta

It's a cold and raining November Saturday here in NE Atlanta, GA. Fall has definitely arrived. Our outside average temperature is typically between 40 degrees and 60 degrees. Nature is changing fast with all the deciduous trees and perennial plants moving towards their winter nakedness. The rain is refilling lake Lanier after a summer drought.

With this natural change comes the exodus of the migrating birds like the ruby throated hummingbird and the gray catbird. We are still waiting for the ingress our winter birds such as the dark eyed junco and the many warblers that make their way here. And of course we have a sizable amount of wild birds that don't migrate at all... they just disappeared.

Where did all the non-migratory wild birds go?

Here at the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek we notice this trend every year. Right after Labor Day it's like a light switch being turned off and the amount of seed sold drops drastically. If the conventional thinking is we do not have a tremendous number of wild birds that migrate from NE Atlanta in the fall - what's up?

My explanation: This is nature being nature.

One of the first sights and sounds we have of fall arriving is not leaves falling, it's acorns falling by the bucketful. Some years we can get 3" of acorns in our beautiful backyard. At the same time, in the early fall, our dogwoods start producing little red berries. Our serviceberry bushes are fruiting. Frost grapes are starting to form. Coneflowers are dying. Hollies are fruiting. All this is happening just as the first fall leaves are dropping.

What does this have to do with our missing birds?

That's simple, all those fruiting grapes, hollies, dogwoods, serviceberries, trees with their multitude of tree nuts, and dead coneflowers are... WILD BIRD FOOD! So where are "my" birds? Simple, they are still around but don't need much of the additional food a wild bird feeder provides. You'll see the same thing with suet cakes. This time of year, even though it can get pretty cold the wild birds have plenty of places to eat so your suet cake could last for weeks.

All of this ends once the natural food has been consumed. Once it gets a bit harder for the wild birds to easily find food they will return in their flocks to yours (and my) beautiful backyard.

PS: This post was stimulated by a customer asking me a few hours ago... "What's wrong with my sunflower hearts, have they spoiled? I don't have any birds!"

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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

Live Mealworms Won't Eat Asparagus?

I've been taught through personal experience that live mealworms will eat anything. Even plastic... Well my thinking has now changed. Live mealworms will eat ALMOST anything.

To be fair I wasn't actually feeding the live mealworms for this test. I did "warm up" to room temperature some worms and placed a small carrot into their container today. I'll let them eat that until we close the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek @ 7pm tonight. Then it's back into the fridge for the week or until they are sold.

At the same time I was feeding the worms I had a container of Darkling Beetles which are the "adult" version of the live mealworms. The worm is actually the "larvae" of their complete cycle of metamorphosis. The beetles are veracious eaters and will crowd a dinner plate quickly.

I do know that the Darkling Beetle will eat carrots, lettuce, apples, potatoes, and even cheese (don't ask and don't do it - makes for stinky bugs). This time I just happen to have a couple of asparagus stalks which I placed into the container. I expected the beetles to climb all over the stalk like they do with carrots. I noticed right away they were not excited about this food. I placed the lid on the container then shut off the light.

Typically what happens next when the light is turned off is that all the beetles that are buried in the wheat bran head right to new food source. I expected, once the light was turned back on, that hundreds of darkling beetles were crawling over the asparagus. But they didn't. I then threw in a couple of carrots and BAM! The beetles were on it.

The moral of the story is: Live mealworms will eat ALMOST anything. Occasionally you may find a food they don't approve of. No sweat just switch that out with a couple of carrots and you are back on track.

Types of Bird Feeders for Backyard Wild Birds

Although it appears that there are a plethora of different types of feeders that can be used for backyard wild birds they really fall into a couple of categories. The most common are:

•  Hopper Feeders
•  Fly Through Feeders
•  Squirrel Proof Feeders
•  Caged Feeders
•  Ranch Feeders
•  Nectar Feeders
•  Mealworm Feeders

In this post we are just going to focus on 3 types. The hopper feeder, fly-through feeder, and squirrel proof feeder.

FLY THROUGH WILD BIRD FEEDER

Fly through wild bird feeders are designed for all birds. From the smallest chickadee to the largest crow. These types of feeders are perfect for the nervous birds that don't stop and feed. Birds like the white breasted nuthatch will not sit at the feeder and eat. That bird is going to land, grab a seed and take off immediately. However the larger birds like the mourning dove will sit on the feeders all day. 

Fly through feeders are basically a platform feeder with a roof. The come in many styles. The one above is handmade by the Amish and is designed as a "covered bridge." This particular model is mounted on a 4x4 wooden pole. The bottom of this unit has a prebuilt flange that fits nicely on the post. 

Some fly through feeders are hung on a shepherds hook, they can be round and small with a roof. They all have the same characteristic which is the birds can sit anywhere on the perch or in the feeder and consume the food that rests in the middle. 

The one disadvantage of a fly through feeder is that it typically has to be filled everyday. The reason is they don't hold a lot of bird seed and they attract a tremendous amount and variety of birds to the feeding station.

HOPPER FEEDERS

Hopper feeders get their name from the large acrylic seed holders that sit in the middle of the units. Gravity allows the seeds to drop from the middle of the unit onto each side of the bird feeder. These hoppers have the ability to hold pounds of seed to handle the wild bird's appetites' for days. They come in many shapes but they all have a couple of typical characteristics:

1.  Large acrylic hopper seed holder in the middle of unit.
2.  The hoppers tend to be set to handle all blended or mixed types of wild bird seeds.
3.  Large perch that allows all birds of all sizes to land and eat. In the A&J Six Sided Copper Feeder above the perch is the copper bar running around the entire bottom of the unit.
4. Most units can be hung from a shepherds hook. Some like the one above are meant to make a statement in your backyard. This particular hopper sits on top of a 4x4 post with a white vinyl sleeve placed over the wooden post to finish off the look.

Squirrel Proof Feeders

Here in NE Atlanta we are inundated with squirrels. With that in mind, at our sister business the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek, we spend a lot of time talking about them. How do you keep squirrels off your bird feeder? Well actually there are several ways to hold the squirrels back. For the purposes of this post I want to focus on the Squirrel Buster Plus. 

The Squirrel Buster Plus works by simply denying the squirrels any chance of getting to the wild bird seed. In fact these types of units work so well we actually want the squirrels to get on them. When the squirrel attempts to get the seed his/her own weight forces the seed port to close. What ends up happening is they just get frustrated and... they eventually give up! Bottom line is Squirrel Busters work!

The one pictured above is a large feeder that holds 3.5 lbs of mixed wild bird seed. It's perch, which is the round green ring at the bottom, can handle any size bird. It is also adjustable. So if your goal is to keeps squirrels and large birds like crows out of the seed you can lighten the spring tension. 

Disadvantage of this type of feeder? Squirrel Busters and squirrel proof feeders in general are very utilitarian in appearance. You're not going to find a pretty coppertop model or one shaped like a covered bridge. They may not make a social  "statement" in your beautiful backyard but they will save you a ton of money on wild bird seed.

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About the Author: David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store in NE Atlanta 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