My Noisy Backyard

American Robin

I have a very noisy backyard. Peaceful, but certainly not quiet, it is full of the sounds of birds singing and squirrels chattering. I love it! We live in an older neighborhood with mature trees of many different species.  Looking west from my back patio it is hard to believe you are in Kansas. In the summer the sun only makes to the ground in about 1/3 of my backyard and 1/4 of my front yard. I love the shade and the birds love the trees. Add to that a small pond, birdbaths, and a tangle of honeysuckle in one corner, and you get lots of birds checking out the area. Then of course there is the food.

Just off our patio there are seven bird feeders and one squirrel feeder. I can sit in my family room and see all of them through the large sliding glass doors.  The feeders are all different types and all contain different feed. They overhang an area that houses a maple tree and they have no grass below them, so the ground feeding birds love the area too. Here is a look at the birds who have visited so far this year. These pictures are not mine. I haven’t gotten good at catching them on film through the glass door. They are just representative of my neighborhood birds.

House Sparrows, Female & Male

The house sparrows are one of my most frequent visitors. They eat mostly the songbird blend.

House Finch ~ Male & Female

My next most frequent visitors are the House Finches. They come in small flocks to eat almost anything I put out. They seem to prefer the safflower seeds, which surprises me. They don't even go near the finch blend I put out! 

Northern Cardinal ~ Female & Male

The Northern Cardinals are my favorite feeder birds, and they are here year round! They love the black oil sunflower seeds best.

Brown Thrasher

The Brown Thrasher likes the dogs water bowl! Primarily an insect eater, like the Robins they don't use the feeders, but they do hang out on my patio a lot!

Hairy Woodpecker

The Hairy Woodpecker doesn't hit the feeders often, but will show up about once a week for some black oil sunflower seeds. They hang off the feeder as seen in the photo.

Wren

The Wrens are my smallest visitors, as I didn't get my hummingbird feeder out in time to attract any Hummingbirds this year. They generally eat the song bird blend.

Common Grackle

My least favorite feeder birds are the Grackles! Loud and obnoxious bullies, they can drive away all the other birds, even the Jays and Squirrels! The only feeder they can use now contains safflower seeds, which they dislike, so they mostly eat off the ground now, which helps.

Blue Jay

The Blue Jays are pretty, but bossy and loud! They love peanuts in the shell! Of course they have the Grackles and Squirrels to compete with for these.

Mourning Dove

The Mourning Doves keep busy cleaning up under the feeders. I love the cooing sounds in the morning.

Next year I hope to have a Oriole feeder and to get my Hummingbird feeder out early enough to attract those species. As the summer progresses and fall comes, I usually see a few more feeder birds. One nice thing about all the birds...we have practically no mosquitoes!

Have a wonderful day! ~Marla

Feeding the Squirrels

Today I thought I would share a tutorial on how to attract fun loving, voracious squirrels to your backyard. Step 1: Hang a bird feeder. Step 2: Fill with bird seed. There you have it! Now you can enjoy minutes of fun as the squirrels devour all the expensive bird seed you have provided for your fine feathered friends. What can take days for the birds to eat, can be gone in an hour as your squirrel friend puts out the call to all his buddies that there is an all you can eat buffet in your backyard!


Now I will admit to having a bit of a love-hate relationship with the squirrels. If you know me well you know I love animals. Pretty much any animal. Except possums. I detest possums! But that is a different story altogether. I like squirrels. They really are cute and fun to watch, and I am happy to feed them, just not my bird seed. This results in my trying to find various ways to outwit them. I will tell you right now that if you are sitting around contemplating the superiority of your human brain; you need only to take on a squirrel to be brought down a notch!


I have one squirrel feeder and another specifically for squirrels and obnoxious Blue Jays. I feed them nuts, cracked corn, bread and stale cereal. The love it! Until it is gone, then on to the bird seed. A couple of years ago I bought a very nice squirrel proof feeder. It is now the squirrels feeder of choice. I tried switching over to safflower seeds. It worked! The squirrels wouldn't touch it. Neither would the birds. I suppose I could take all my feeders out from under the tree and put them on poles in the middle of the yard. But then I couldn't see them from my window. Same story with squirrel baffles. It would obstruct the view, and they are ugly as well. Besides I have seen pictures of smart squirrels outwitting baffles.


So today I am trying yet another squirrel deterrent. I have added cayenne pepper to my bird seed. According to various wild bird sources, it doesn't harm or bother the birds, but the squirrels don't like the smell. We'll see. I just keep remembering how when I was little my mom put hot pepper juice on my fingernails to keep me from biting them. All it accomplished was that I was probably the only four year old in town eating hot peppers at the dinner table. With my luck my the squirrels will start requesting cayenne pepper on all of their food!
Have a wonderful day! ~Marla 

Feeding the Birds

There are times I definitely feel older. I don’t mean the aches and pains; it is more a state of mind. And not in a bad way either. Various ads, magazine articles and books extol the virtues of staying young. As the boomers start to leave middle age the encouraging mantra is, "You're only as old as you feel", "Sixty is the new forty." Really? Well, maybe in some aspects. Health care is such that we live longer, healthier lives. And staying physically active longer is a good thing. But growing older isn't such a bad thing is it? I love quotes, so I took a look at what I could find on growing older. This is just a tiny sampling of what I found.


Age is an issue of mind over matter.  If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.  ~Mark Twain
The years teach much which the days never knew.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not regret growing older.  It is a privilege denied to many.  ~Author Unknown
Grow old with me!  The best is yet to be.  ~Robert Browning
Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.  ~Martin Buxbaum
It's important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle.  ~Author Unknown
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.  ~Quoted by Francis Bacon, Apothegm


I spent a couple of hours at my daughter's house yesterday. She had yard work to do, and I sat in a lawn chair providing moral support. When I compare our yards this is what I see.....less attention to detail, less to draw the eye, less to listen to, less to tend to. Now I know I am generalizing somewhat here, but for myself, I saw it as a difference in where we are in our lives. She is at a point of busyness. No time to slow down, nor really any desire to do so. Home is where your closet and laptop are, where you throw parties and have friends over to hang out. And as a twenty something with no kids, I would say that is typical.


Home for me is my nest. A place I can be myself, wear what I want, do what I want. A place to slow down and enjoy peace. Flowers in bloom in beds and in pots on the porch. A pond to reflect upon. Wind chimes to bring notes on the breeze. Bird feeders filling the area outside my window, bringing beauty and song to my back porch. I love feeding the birds, slowing down, watching them. It wasn't always this way. When I was in my daughters shoes, I had none of this. But now, I feel older. Older, but more content. Older, but more observant. Older, but less rushed. Not really such a bad trade off in my opinion.
~Marla