Hands down best

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Reality show. Complete with squabbling, fighting, conniving and other high drama. Front yard bird feeding with several feeders and different offerings! Sneaky thwarted squirrel plots included!

[busymom]

Love it!     We used to have a bluebird house at our last house, & it was always interesting to watch different variety of birds who'd try to take over that space.

[sesfw]

Love bird feeders and the ones that come to enjoy.  In Michigan we had a squirrel feeder against a tall tree and the bird feeder in the middle of the yard away from trees.

Our squirrel barricade looked like a stove pipe with the top closed off and clamped to the feeder post.  Worked like a charm and boy did the squirrels get mad.

Here in the desert we get a dove and quail seed block and set it on a large piece of flagstone.  It lasts for a couple of months.  Walled in back yard and birds feel safe.

[dannylion]

Friends put their cat tree at the window that looks out onto their bird feeders.  This provides hours of entertainment for their 4 cats.  Kitty TV!  

[weltschmerz]

Feb 9, 2020 8:55:12 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Reality show. Complete with squabbling, fighting, conniving and other high drama. Front yard bird feeding with several feeders and different offerings! Sneaky thwarted squirrel plots included!

I just went to the park to feed the squirrels. Same thing. They're really hungry because there's nothing but snow.

[Sharon]

I was just outside and a bunch of crows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood. 

[NancysSummerSip]

Feb 9, 2020 15:26:01 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I was just outside and a bunch of crows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood. 

I must be tired. I misread that as "I was just outside and a bunch of cows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood." I thought, "dayum, how fast do cows run in your 'hood and what are they eating?"

My bad.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Feb 9, 2020 15:55:39 GMT -5 NancysSummerSip said:

Feb 9, 2020 15:26:01 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I was just outside and a bunch of crows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood. 

I must be tired. I misread that as "I was just outside and a bunch of cows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood." I thought, "dayum, how fast do cows run in your 'hood and what are they eating?"

My bad. [img alt="" src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/embarrassed.png" class="smile"]

LOL! Don’t feel too bad. At the store this morning, DH was looking at a bag of M & M darks and mistook a word on the package to read “bacon”. 

[dannylion]

Feb 9, 2020 16:04:06 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Feb 9, 2020 15:55:39 GMT -5 NancysSummerSip said:

I must be tired. I misread that as "I was just outside and a bunch of cows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood." I thought, "dayum, how fast do cows run in your 'hood and what are they eating?"

My bad. [img alt="[img src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/embarrassed.png" class="smile" alt=""]" src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/embarrassed.png" class="smile"]

LOL! Don’t feel too bad. At the store this morning, DH was looking at a bag of M & M darks and mistook a word on the package to read “bacon”. 

Now I want dark chocolate bacon M&Ms to be a thing.   

[Tennesseer]

Prior to allowing homeless cats to live in my backyard year round, I used to have several bird feeders. As Cheesy mentions, plenty of drama at the feeders.

On occasion, hawks would fly by and the birds at the feeder and on the ground would scatter. One time I saw a hawk land on my fence. The birds scattered. I decided to shoo the hawk away. I exited the backdoor and unbeknownst to me, I flushed a hiding small bird out of a bush by the backdoor. The bird took off and saw did the hawk. The hawk caught it in mid-air. I can still hear the small bird crying as it was being flown away.

I stopped going outside to shoo hawks away after that. Just hoped for the best.

Anther time I watched a hawk sitting on the fence consuming a bird it had caught elsewhere. Nature in action.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Feb 9, 2020 17:29:48 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Prior to allowing homeless cats to live in my backyard year round, I used to have several bird feeders. As Cheesy mentions, plenty of drama at the feeders.

On occasion, hawks would fly by and the birds at the feeder and on the ground would scatter. One time I saw a hawk land on my fence. The birds scattered. I decided to shoo the hawk away. I exited the backdoor and unbeknownst to me, I flushed a hiding small bird out of a bush by the backdoor. The bird took off and saw did the hawk. The hawk caught it in mid-air. I can still hear the small bird crying as it was being flown away.

I stopped going outside to shoo hawks away after that. Just hoped for the best.

Anther time I watched a hawk sitting on the fence consuming a bird it had caught elsewhere. Nature in action.

I was stunned to see for the first time ever, a merlin at my house in FL. It had caught a bird which was sad but fascinating at the same time. Hawks and herons routinely kept a lid on the muscovy duck population dow there. The females are terrible mothers, but the males have a lot to do with that because groups of them ganged the mothers, so the ducklings were frequently left to their own devices.

[Tennesseer]

Feb 9, 2020 17:34:39 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Feb 9, 2020 17:29:48 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Prior to allowing homeless cats to live in my backyard year round, I used to have several bird feeders. As Cheesy mentions, plenty of drama at the feeders.

On occasion, hawks would fly by and the birds at the feeder and on the ground would scatter. One time I saw a hawk land on my fence. The birds scattered. I decided to shoo the hawk away. I exited the backdoor and unbeknownst to me, I flushed a hiding small bird out of a bush by the backdoor. The bird took off and saw did the hawk. The hawk caught it in mid-air. I can still hear the small bird crying as it was being flown away.

I stopped going outside to shoo hawks away after that. Just hoped for the best.

Anther time I watched a hawk sitting on the fence consuming a bird it had caught elsewhere. Nature in action.

I was stunned to see for the first time ever, a merlin at my house in FL. It had caught a bird which was sad but fascinating at the same time. Hawks and herons routinely kept a lid on the muscovy duck population dow there. The females are terrible mothers, but the males have a lot to do with that because groups of them ganged the mothers, so the ducklings were frequently left to their own devices.

When I first moved here I lived in a townhouse apartment complex build around a bunch of man-made ponds. Plenty of mallard and Muscovy ducks. The mallard females were prone to making nests, one by my front door in dome bushes The eggs would rot and smell to high hell as no ducks tended to the eggs.

I once had a parrot hang around me feeders one Memorial weekend many years ago. Escaped from his/her home. For three days it ate out of the feeders. I have no idea if it ever found its way home before fall and winter set in.

The parrot looked like this:

[Deleted]

Our feeders are a never-ending drama of birds and squirrels and cats and possums and raccoons.  We have a resident population of white-winged dove, Inca dove, grey squirrels, robins, cardinals, blue jays, English sparrows, crows, red-bellied woodpeckers, house finches, spice finches, and Carolina wrens.  Then we have the occasional drive-by from monk's parrots and all sorts of warblers.  

On the predator side, we have Eastern screech owls, horned owls and the very occasional barred owls.  For hawks, we have them all.  The red-shouldered hawk is year-round along with red-tails and sharp-shinned.  Lots of kites during migration time fall and spring.  Nearby bayous draw sea eagles and the high-rise buildings have nesting peregrine falcons.  

We sit out on the deck to watch and listen.  Total silence or the explosive "whoosh" of doves taking flight means something is hunting aloft.  The young hawks are pretty inept at hunting and I often wonder how long they can go without a successful hunt.  They are amazing acrobats and it's pretty disconcerting to have them whiz by within inches of your head in pursuit of their prey.

The only bird I really dislike is the crow because they predate on the eggs and nestlings of my songbirds like cardinals and blue jays but that's what they are and that's their place in the world.  They do have the homeliest of babies and, truly, a baby crow is something only Mama Crow can love.

[Tennesseer]

Feb 9, 2020 18:51:33 GMT -5 @donethat said:

Our feeders are a never-ending drama of birds and squirrels and cats and possums and raccoons.  We have a resident population of white-winged dove, Inca dove, grey squirrels, robins, cardinals, blue jays, English sparrows, crows, red-bellied woodpeckers, house finches, spice finches, and Carolina wrens.  Then we have the occasional drive-by from monk's parrots and all sorts of warblers.  

On the predator side, we have Eastern screech owls, horned owls and the very occasional barred owls.  For hawks, we have them all.  The red-shouldered hawk is year-round along with red-tails and sharp-shinned.  Lots of kites during migration time fall and spring.  Nearby bayous draw sea eagles and the high-rise buildings have nesting peregrine falcons.  

We sit out on the deck to watch and listen.  Total silence or the explosive "whoosh" of doves taking flight means something is hunting aloft.  The young hawks are pretty inept at hunting and I often wonder how long they can go without a successful hunt.  They are amazing acrobats and it's pretty disconcerting to have them whiz by within inches of your head in pursuit of their prey.

The only bird I really dislike is the crow because they predate on the eggs and nestlings of my songbirds like cardinals and blue jays but that's what they are and that's their place in the world.  They do have the homeliest of babies and, truly, a baby crow is something only Mama Crow can love.

Blue jays also predate smaller birds's nest during and post egg laying season. The blue jays are after the shells or the chick bones for its calcium which all female birds lose during egg-laying season.

Blue jays also mimic the call of hawks: either to clear the bird feeders of other birds feeding so they can eat or to actually warn birds at feeders a hawk is close by.

[Deleted]

Yes, jays don't play nice either.  I've occasionally mistaken their call for a hawk's call, particularly during the spring months.  Every critter brings challenges; the last time a squirrel decided to create what our local power company called "animal related incident" by incinerating itself on the high wire, we lost power for 4 hours.  Thankfully I have my standby generator for those occasions.  

Right now we have 5 young adult grey squirrels from last year's crop chasing one another around the yard and contesting for feeder dominance.   One of them recently learned that challenging a woodpecker is not a good idea which is very important lesson.

[weltschmerz]

The only bird I really dislike is the crow because they predate on the eggs and nestlings of my songbirds like cardinals and blue jays but that's what they are and that's their place in the world. They do have the homeliest of babies and, truly, a baby crow is something only Mama Crow can love.


 Crows are my favourite birds, as they're unbelievably smart! They have the intelligence of a seven year old human child. What can I say? I prefer brains over brawn. I used to feed them in the country and in return, they left me little gifts on my porch.....buttons and earrings, paper clips and lug nuts and pretty red berries.

www.nathab.com/blog/crows-are-as-intelligent-as-a-seven-year-old-child/

[NoNamePerson]

Feb 9, 2020 15:55:39 GMT -5 NancysSummerSip said:

Feb 9, 2020 15:26:01 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I was just outside and a bunch of crows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood. 

I must be tired. I misread that as "I was just outside and a bunch of cows were busy running a hawk out of the neighborhood." I thought, "dayum, how fast do cows run in your 'hood and what are they eating?"

My bad. [img src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/embarrassed.png" alt="" class="smile"]

What a visual as only you can draw!!!! My LOL for the day/night

[bobosensei]

Last summer I found 3 mice in one bluebird house and 1 in the other.  I cleaned them out, but haven't seen birds in them.  Not sure if the birds will ever go back in them.  I might just take them down.  Only thing worse than finding mice in them would be if I found a snake.

[NastyWoman]

Feb 11, 2020 8:06:49 GMT -5 bobosensei said:

Last summer I found 3 mice in one bluebird house and 1 in the other.  I cleaned them out, but haven't seen birds in them.  Not sure if the birds will ever go back in them.  I might just take them down.  Only thing worse than finding mice in them would be if I found a snake.

a LIVE snake would require a flamethrower to be acquired and put to immediate use!!!

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

We had indigo buntings and rose breasted grosbeaks passing through this week on the way north!

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Feb 9, 2020 13:54:36 GMT -5 dannylion said:

Friends put their cat tree at the window that looks out onto their bird feeders.  This provides hours of entertainment for their 4 cats.  Kitty TV!  

Yep.  Sheldon spends hours at the deck door watching the bird feeder.  Drives him nuts that he can’t help (himself).

[Deleted]

I've been having a great time watching the birds from my enclosed back porch. This year I got rid of the "dish" feeders- the bottom dish part frequently worked its way loose and fell 2 stories down to the ground. I now have a couple of tube feeders and seem to be getting a better mix of birds. I saw a rose-breasted grosbeak a couple of days ago, have lots of goldfinches and house finches, a couple of varieties of woodpecker, and then a few days ago a Baltimore oriole found the hummingbird feeder. It's been back to enjoy the orange half I added.

Those feeders get no squirrels at all- they hang from chains installed on the roof. I buy seed cakes that are laced with hot pepper for other areas- squirrels hate them but they don't bother the birds at all.

Sometimes I see a Great Blue Heron on the lake. Now, if I could just find something to poison the %$##@! Canada geese....