Even some fellow bloggers (Jessica comes to mind) are quite good at attracting an array of colorful and diverse birds to their yards and feeders, etc. And yeah, we get our fair share of cardinals and blue jays and woodpeckers and others. However, our big lure to get birds right up by the window is one of those suet cakes in a wire cage that we buy for less than a dollar at Drug Mart. These have yielded good results and a lot of entertainment over the years. For the last couple of days, though, the suet cake has been pretty much the domain of a bunch of grackles, and they've been going through them like hotcakes. These particular birds are indeed not colorful, but they are expressive, and it is entertaining to watch them position themselves out in the yard and on branches to be the next one to swoop in and take a few quick pecks before their replacement zeros in. Sort of like watching the planes circling above the airport, lining up for the final approach, except in this case the birds are improvising without any air traffic controller.
Anyhow, in honor of our latest visitors, here are a couple less-than- satisfactory shots of the birds, shot through what has clearly (or, more accurately, unclearly) become a quite dirty window.
3 comments:
I've seen a few Grackles in the last few days but most of my nuisance birds are Starlings. I call them my garbage birds. You are right, they can eat suet like crazy. I stopped filling my log suet feeders because the Starlings just eat it all up within half a day and the woodpeckers get none. I'm trying to learn to live in harmony with them.
I too wanted to attract birds right up to my windows. I got some of those feeders that stick on the windows with suction cups but they really didn't attract anyting to speak of and they constantly fell off the window.
But even with the occasional nuisance.... I'm having too much fun to stop feeding the birds.
I too have a suet cake hung on my front porch, in front of the picture window. it has one constant visitor, which is a little chickadee.
Well, we will keep trying with a couple other feeders in the yard. What is really attracting all kinds right now is the birdbath. The robins, jays, and cardinals seem to like to jump in and wash off.
Post a Comment