Tomorrow, we are expecting the "Arctic Vortex" to make its way to my area. That got me kickstarted into my winter hobby, feeding my local birds. I wish I could feed them year round, but it has not worked out that way yet. However, whenever our area is set for a big period of cold weather, especially if there is a chance for snow, I always remember to grab the bird seed!
I love to watch the birds come to my feeders and look forward to seeing which species will arrive! So on Sunday I set up my feeding station. I bought four new feeders since the squirrels destroyed some of my old ones last fall.
Here is a picture of my new setup.
The top feeder, pale green feeder, and the feeder in the back are all filled with premium bird food. This feed includes a mixture of millet, sunflower, and safflower seeds.
The long skinny feeder in the front is a cedar finch feeder. It has tiny slits for finches to retrieve seed, and is filled with a mixture of nyjer (thistle) seeds and chips of sunflower hearts.
And the dark green round feeder on the right is a mesh sunflower feeder. It is filled with black oil sunflower seeds only.
So about 2.5 hours after setting up my new feeding station, I started seeing birds at my feeders. Not bad for the first day out. I thought I would share the species I spotted at my new feeder station on Sunday. All links go to information pages about these species, just in case you catch birding fever :)
Carolina Chickadee
Northern Mockingbird
All photos are from AllAboutBirds.org which is a website dedicated to bird identification sponsored by Cornell University's Ornithology Lab.
If you are into feeder watching, please consider participating in Cornell's Feederwatch Program. It is a wonderful way to engage kids in biological sciences by studying the birds in your own back yard. I have done it in the past, and hope to do it again in the next few years when I can get my son interested in it. :)
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