Move feeders closer to your house.
In the summer it’s a good idea to have your feeders farther from your house, you are outside more, using your decks etc and you would be scaring the birds away. In winter your not outside as much and you don’t want to be trudging through the snow to fill feeders. This practice also gives that patch of lawn a break from seed shells and droppings. If you are using shepherds hooks, you’ll want to get them in the ground before it freezes. If the hooks use a stake that you drive in the ground first and then place the pole into the stake, it’s only smart to buy another stake. It’s gotta be worth a couple bucks so you don’t have to pull the stake out and drive it into the ground in another site. Once you have 2 in the ground you can move them back and forth in minutes each season. Kinda like having an extra set of rims for your snow tires.
One year that I wasn’t ready and we had a ton of snow, talked my wife into giving up the close line for the rest of the winter. Stop feeding on the line early enough in the spring though or the birds will be hanging around over the clean laundry looking for food, that always ends poorly.
If you have your feeders in trees and can move them closer it’s a good idea as well, although there’s no rush. I have a couple of deck mounted brackets that I like to use for seed in the winter, I’m not sitting out and am shoveling the deck anyway so the mess isn’t an issue. In summer I move the seed feeders into the tree and place a Hummingbird feeder and hanging basket on these hangers. About 90% of my winter feeder pictures are taken on this hanger from the comfort of my kitchen window. I test new feeder designs there too, if the birds like them I take pictures for my website, if they don’t like them, the wood stove is just inside the door. Some years I can almost heat the house with bad ideas.
Plan really far ahead and save work starting that new flower bed.
One of my favourite flower beds got started 2 years before we actually planted anything. I outlined the bed in the fall and tilled the ground a couple times. Then I placed a shepherds hook in the middle and fed sunflower seeds there all winter. In spring, I carefully made my way through the bed of sunflower sprouts and removed the feeders and pole. I did nothing else to the bed all summer, the sunflowers choked out all weeds and looked beautiful. (They are also beneficial to the soil.) A year from starting I had a bird magnet when the sunflowers matured, they also provided shelter all winter. In the spring the flower stalks easily pulled out and I had a beautiful weed free palate to plant. Well……for my wife to plant, my work was done. I’ve done this with millet as well, with great results; although the bed looks totally different and you get different birds. I suppose you could do it with mixed seed, but you would probably end up growing mostly what the birds don’t like, as it would be left behind to grow, and unlike millet and sunflower the junk might over winter and become a weed problem in your flower bed.
This might be a good time to mention that nyjer seed doesn’t grow here, it might except the importing seed company has to sterilize it so they don’t import some exotic weed that would take over everything else, like the purple loosestrife problem. So you can’t try saving a few bucks growing your own but you don’t have to worry about growing thistles in your garden; a common misconception as they are actually a small sunflower/daisy like plant. (Guizotia abyssinica for those of you who use the wikipedia.)
Plan where you will place your birdhouses for next year.
It seems that once the mosquitoes are gone for the summer they are forgotten about until next year. If you want to incorporate some “natural insect control” into your pest management plan, you have to at least think about it now. I always get inquiries about bats, Tree Swallow, and of course Purple Martin, in the height of the mosquito season. By then it’s simply too late, then you say to yourself, “I’ve got lots of time.” Before you know it the grounds frozen, you can’t get any post in the ground and the swallows are back. You don’t have to get the houses out yet, but you really should drive some posts in the ground, so next March all you have to do is screw the houses on. Since Tree Swallow houses can be as low as 5 feet, a sharpened 8 foot cedar stake works great. Drive a few posts in the ground at good intervals, away from human and feeder traffic. The more you put out the better chance you have of getting a nest. Swallows have about an 85 foot territory, but it’s good to place extra as they can be a little picky about their real estate. Please note that Tree Swallows don’t like nesting in trees; go figure; probably because of squirrels. Even if the squirrel hasn’t claimed the house for itself, the birds may feel a threat from predation. Bat houses should be at least 12 feet high in full sun, so that may take a little more planning. Purple Martins haven’t been seen nesting in southeastern NB for over 10 years, so I would plan on another bird for now, as they require elaborate houses and poles that will probably end up being used by European Starlings.
Cliff and Barn Swallows will nest on shelves placed under the eave of a house or garage. They too will eat insects.
Sometime between now and spring clean out any nests that you had in existing houses and maybe give them all a quick check for other things like old hornet or mouse nests that you may not have noticed, these will keep birds from using the house. If you think you have hornets wait until freeze up.
Getting out of a little work.
Don’t clean up too much, a messy yard is attractive to birds. Tall flower stalks give cover from predators and the dead flower heads provide seeds. The dead plants also catch snow that will insulate plants and will keep the soil from washing and blowing away. This is what I tell my wife anyway and it seems get me out of the work, until spring. If you think your ready to take procrastination to the next level…..dead leaves provide cover for the worms and insects that will in turn attract a variety of birds. You’ll see robins, sparrows and others scratching them up and flipping them over to get food that is hiding underneath. It’ll take a little convincing but if you sound sure of yourself and stick to your story you won’t be raking leaves this fall.
written by Dwayne Biggar at The Bird Garden
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