whenever I hear people discussing ways to discourage the sparrow I have to ask myself why? As You can easily see from my photo's when there is an abundant supply of food the birds will all mingle well. From my observation it is only when the food is in short supply that they really begin to be territorial. The question then becomes, why is the seed in short supply? No doubt the answer here is simple economics. People don't care to spend a lot of money on expensive birdseed, only to have it consumed by the less desirable birds and they don't get to see the species they are really interested in. From my experience the solution here is to shop around for your wild bird seed. By example, we have a local store that caters specifically to feeding and attracting wild birds. They sell a general mix of wild bird seed for $15 for a 20lb bag. On the other hand, Walmart has 20lb bags of the same seed for $10, however at Walmart it is a seasonal item and by now you probably can't find it. How would you like to find a year around source that has a better selection at prices far below the average retail store prices? In almost every community there is a store that specializes in selling feed, grain and hay for horses or farm animals. When my sister goes to the feed mill to buy feed for her horses I tag along and buy 50# bags of premium wild bird seed (mixed seed & peanuts) for $12 plus I buy a 50# bag of black oilseed sunflower seed for another $13. I then mix the two together and I end up with a premium blend for an average of $.25/lb. If you cannot find a Feed & grain supply in your community check out TSC (Tractor Supply Co.) TSC is also a great place to find feeders of all types for prices far below what you find in the regular retail stores, but then feeders are so simple to build i don't see why anyone would pay the prices they ask in most stores. While we are on the subject of bird feed, you may be surprised at how much you throw away every month without realizing it. When you bake a ham or a roast trim off the excess fat and put that in your suet feeder, the birds love it. At my house we all love to eat acorn or butternut squash. When you hollow out the seeds put them out for the birds, here again, they love it. Making a salad? Save the carrot peelings of the birds and by all means, be sure to save your orange or grapefruit peelings. I have seen a Bluejay grab an entire half section grapefruit peel and fly it up into the pine tree. Stale popcorn, potato chips, pretzels, breakfast cereal and cookies all go over well with the birds and as silly as it may sound, even leftover porky beans, whole kernel corn or green beans will quickly disappear when the birds find them. As you can see, I have taken feeding the birds rather seriously however to tell the truth it is more an means to an end. Since I retired last June I have taken up nature photography as a hobby, and since it is a bit too cold to get out in the woods like i would like to do, this is a way i can bring nature to me while i comfortably sit in the house...LOL. Gein that the subject of this thread was how to attract cardinals I thought i might post a couple more Cardinal Picks, along with one of my favorite pics of a Bluejay.

Wow, I've found the right place --- psycho bird victims unite! I've had male cardinal attacking my windows for 7 months now. I've tried covering windows, spraying windex(it was all I had) on outside of window, aluminum foil on outside of windows(I got creative for a while). If I cover one window he comes to another. He has now found my bedroom. This is from dawn to dusk and I'm not a fan of getting up at dusk! It's making me crazy, I'm smoking more, thinking of buying a gun(used to be a pacificist...) and losing friends! I've always been one to try to see a 'meaning' from the universe in odd moments but my love and peace tendencies are waning quickly. Please let me know if anything has worked ... I've got a lot of windows. Jeez, I just read they can live 15 years. I dont thidsfnk ihave thaat mch tiim lftt.

Okay.......here's what I'm trying now. I have a fake owl in my golf cart shed, to hopefully keep the mice from chewing all the wires. I set it on a pole in front of the window. We'll see if it works. It's so funny.......on one of the windows, she slides down and all you can see is her little head looking through the corner of the window. She's cute...........but still drives me nuts! hahaha I've never had any other kind of bird doing this. For many years, we had an old pickup truck parked by another shed. A male cardinal spent his days pecking at the side mirror. I wonder why just cardinals do it? Maybe their red colors reflect more??

Because of a recent bald male, I have read many articles about balding birds. This one was bald for about 8 months. I worried about his little cold, bald head all winter long but never found a reason why he wouldn't have grown the feathers back. Even now his feathers are not completely grown back. He's distinguishable from the other birds by the lack of a few feathers along the back of his neck. I hope he doesn't go bald again this year. Besides that one, we have 2 other bald males and a bald female. She has been bald for several months but seems like her feathers are coming back in nicely now. Here's another baldy.