Thanks for posting, Misty! I probably won't go, but if you decide to go let us know what kind of birds they had there. I hadn't heard of Nature's Educators, so glad to find out about them! I spent a while checking out their site!

You probably know about this place, but just in case you don't, do you know that if you ever happen to see/find an injured raptor you can call Birds of Prey in Broomfield and they'll get it and take care of it? Just thought I'd mention it since it's up here on "our end of town!"

http://www.birds-of-prey.org/

I spent part of today "improving" my Bird Diner! Have 8 feeders out there now, and will be adding a suet cage or two tomorrow! With the coming of the cold weather the feeders have been pretty much mobbed! Mostly House Finches, but with the cold also come the Juncos--pretty little birds! And I also "improved" the Staging Area around my birdbath with more flat rocks to make it easy for a lot of them to get to it at the same time--without getting their feet wet! It was COLD out there! Now if only I could figure out how to keep the raccoon--that showed up at 11:30 last nite and scared the bejesus out of me--away from the birdbath! (And trampling any more of my plants! It did a real number on my Bergenia last nite!)

Happy Gardening Christmas,

Skybird

I'm going to try to go to it, Skybird! I'm recuperating from gallbladder surgery, but hopefully I'm moving around a lot better by then and will be able to make it. I'll let you know, and maybe post a pic or two.

I've been thinking about putting out a bird feeder in my yard now that we don't have a cat any more (daughter took hers with her when she got her own place). I've never noticed any raccoons around, so hopefully they won't be a problem. Too bad yours are trampling your plants as well as stealing the bird's food!

Marj

Marj,

I'm sorry to hear you had to have surgery and hope all is well. Here's to a speedy recovery! I got their email and am thinking of going. It's going to be a bit chilly for garden work and this sounds like a fun event. Maybe I'll see you there!

Barb

Hi Misty,

If you're thinking about getting a bird feeder--or two, here are some ideas!

First of all, be sure you put it where you can easily see it from inside. If it's possible to see it from "wherever you usually sit" you'll be really glad! If you have to stand by a window to see it you probably won't spend much time watching, and will miss a lot of the birds.

Second, I very highly recommend putting some sort of stepping stones or bricks or some other solid surface below the feeders. If you don't the grass will die fairly quickly and you'll wind up with just a dirt/mud patch below the feeders. With a hard surface there it's much easier for "ground birds" to find and eat the fallen seed, and it's MUCH easier for you to clean up the seed hulls that fall. MUCH easier!

If you have squirrels in your area you'll also need some sort of Squirrel Preventer or you'll just wind up feeding the squirrels. It took me 9 or 10 years to come up with a truly effective way to keep the squirrels off of the feeders, and now the birds actually get some! What finally worked for me was to hang sections of 4" stove pipe over the posts the hangers are on. Well, that slowed them down significantly, but didn't totally stop them! Some of them still managed to combine jumping and hugging the stove pipe enough still get up! I tried putting red pepper all over everything, but it didn't last long enough, so I finally made up little tinfoil "packets" and wired them to the arms the feeders are on, and after getting up a couple times and breaking open a couple of the "packets" and getting a face full of pepper, they finally gave up! So that's a possibility if you have a problem with squirrels. (The red pepper, capsaicin, doesn't bother the birds!)

I also recommend that you don't buy the "generic" bird seed "mixes!" Most of them are mostly millet, which is not "preferred" by a lot of the birds you want to attract. AND, a lot of mixes also have a bunch of milo in them--which even the squirrels don't seem to like! When I first started feeding I didn't know the different seeds and paid a lot of attention, and there was always milo laying all over that didn't get eaten--by anybody! What I eventually started doing was to feed just black oil sunflower (the smaller sunflower seeds), safflower (white seeds), and thistle (a/k/a Nyger). Those and suet in winter are pretty much all I feed. Thistle seed attracts finches, and it's mostly goldfinches that eat it--and I rarely see them in winter, so that would be a "next summer" thing for you to try. Thistle seeds are VERY small, so it needs a special thistle feeder or the seed all falls on the ground.

Here are a few pics of my "setup!" I did put out two suet feeders today, so now I have 10 feeders out there! Winter is the most important time to feed if you're only going to feed part of the year--especially when there's snow cover! I can't post "links" to my pics anymore--Google discontinued WebAlbums, and what they have now is as bad as photobucket and flickr, so I don't really have any way to use my pics anymore (except to look at them myself!), so today I took these and, after straightening them and cropping a couple of them I "saved" them in Picasa, which is, I believe, the only way I can post them here with the edits! I hope I'm right and that it works!

The first is looking across the back of my house with "feeding station," and, on the right, with all the branches and wire, right next to the window, is my "defrosted" birdbath!

The second is a closeup of the feeders. I have two--very expensive--posts that have 4 hooks on each one, and then I've added 2 garden stakes across the top that I hang more feeders from! You can see the stove pipe I'm talking about! There are two "layers!" I tried the 3" first, but the squirrels went right up that like it wasn't there! I was gonna take the 3" down when I put up the 4", but decided to leave it there to ensure they couldn't just climb the post INSIDE of the 4" pipe! You can see all the little "packets" of red pepper too! The Final Solution to my Squirrel Problem!

The next one shows the location of the feeders looking toward the house! That's the family room, and that's the window I'm sitting inside of most of the time when I'm home! The terra cotta colored (BIG) plant saucer behind all the branches is my birdbath! All the wire and other "debris" around the table the birdbath is on is my cat/squirrel/raccoon Deterrent! When I started I had a couple branches for the birds to sit on, but in trying to deter the cats I kept adding more and more. The birds love having places to "line up" when they're waiting to get to the water!

And this is the birdbath! I added more "stuff" after the raccoon was in it Monday nite, so I'm not sure about them yet, but all That Mess DOES keep the cats away--and from killing my birds. It also keeps the squirrels out pretty well--no, I don't begrudge them a drink, but the more they hang around the more likely they are to find another way to get up to the feeders--and it REALLY is amazing how much damage they can do to the plants, especially in fall when they're burying everything they can find for winter! And in spring they also dig up bulbs to eat! I've had them dig a good 6" down to get to some of the bulbs! And in late winter when they don't have much to eat they also eat hen & chicks and sedums and other things! So I just try to "minimize" them as much as possible! It's hard to tell what's what in the window since the whole yard is reflected in it, but if you look closely on the right, that's the back of my computer, and that's where I sit most of the time! So the birdbath is RIGHT outside of the window, and the feeders about 8' past that! And I have my binoculars right next to me where I sit!

Here's one more! I just realized you can't see "my trees" in any of those! I don't have any deciduous trees in my yard, and birds REALLY like to have a place where they can "sit" to either wait to go to a feeder, or to eat the seeds they get, so shortly after I set up the first post and the first couple feeders I started "tying" branches to the post so they'd have somewhere to land! They LOVED it, and I kept adding more! It really wasn't hard to find branches with FIVE dying cottonwoods in my neighbor's yards! By now I have quite a few of them, and I just added another "crossbar" yesterday and put up another pretty big branch--not really visible from this angle, but this gives you an idea of what you can do to get more birds to your feeders if you start feeding and don't have many after a week or two! It REALLY helped attract them to my feeders!

And then, just for fun, here's a pic of one of the squirrels ON TOP when I just had the 3" stove pipe! Not very clear! It was taken thru the window--and I think the screen might have still been on it! Luckily, with the types of feeders I have now, the squirrels couldn't get to too much of the seed even when they DID get up there! (But they chase the birds away too!)

And here are a couple pics of a wild turkey that happened to show up in my neighborhood last April! It was in the front yard on the ground at first, then it went thru a neighbor's yard to the backyard, THEN it flew up to the roof of my one neighbor's house, and then it flew across to the other neighbor's house! After that it walked over to the other side of the roof and I didn't see it again! Livin' out here in the Wilds Of Thornton!!!

If you have any questions I (or Barb--or Zach, or anybody else!) can help with, just ask!

Get well soon,

Skybird

Hope you have a very easy and speedy recovery, Marj. That seems to be more of a common surgery in the last couple of years. You're the 4th person I know that's had it, the other 3 are close workmates.

I'd love to meet you guys at O'Toole's this weekend but have work friends coming over for a "responsible" crazy movie night on the 3rd! We're eating too much, drinking and watching Bad Moms but no drinking and driving--all are staying overnight. One of the advantages of being an empty nester--lots of extra space for guests!

My goodness, Skybird! That is quite the process you have been through on your bird feeders!! Very impressive. Wow, I'm going to have to think about this before delving into it. I can think of only two windows that I'd be able to easily sit and watch a feeder, or possibly the one in my dining room. I do have lots of squirrels, and don't want to encourage them at all! I'll try to follow at least some of your tips, or may just hope the birds in my yard are tough enough to fight them off :^D. But maybe if I put one in my front flower bed by my bay window might be less inviting to the squirrels, or at least would give me the easier access to chase them off. I'll plan over the winter and see what I come up with.

Treebarb - would you be going to the Westminster O'Tooles? That's the one that's close to me. But the other locations are having this event as well.

Thanks for the get well wishes :) I'm feeling much better today, but didn't think I would when I got up! In the long run, will be better off not having my gallbladder since I had troublesome stones, but geez - was feeling pretty wiped out Mon. - Wed. (had surgery Monday afternoon). Funny you know so many people who've had this surgery, Lizbest!

Oh, Skybird - how cool you had a wild turkey show up!! Had no idea there would be some in this area!

Marj

If Barb sees this, I'm sure she'll encourage you to start feeding them, Misty! I'm the one who got her started! She and I buy sunflower and safflower seed in 40 and 50 pound bags now--and often check with each other if we're getting some to see if the other person needs some too. It's really wonderful to have birds around all the time, and it's WAY cool when you start to recognize them! You might want to consider getting just a small cheap feeder and a (small!) bag of sunflower and give it a try to get a feel for how it goes--both with the birds and with the squirrels!

Glad you're feeling better,

Skybird

Marj,

I'm glad to hear you're on the mend! I'll be going to the Westminster O'Toole's.

Skybird did get me started in bird watching/feeding and has been a wonderful resource. When I had horses, I developed a relationship with a flock of house sparrows. They were always around collecting spilled grain from the horses and I grew to love them.

One winter, about 5 years ago, a goldfinch showed up in an old ash tree near our living room picture window. The little one then flew to the sill of the picture window and looked me in the eye as if to say, "Don't you have anything for me?' The next winter that happened again. I'll never know if it was the same goldfinch, but I like to think it was. That's when I started getting feeders. I put one in an old, dead, snag tree by the barn, just for the sparrows and another in the ash tree outside the living room picture window. I started out with the mixes and found as Skybird did, that much of it was wasted. She let me know what her birds like and I started paying attention to what my favorite birds liked best. I did settle on nyger (thistleseed) for the gold and house finches, safflower, black oil sunflower and suet for the others. I am up to 4 feeders and one suet basket now and fill them daily.

Our property is on a bit of a peninsula, the highway on one side and an irrigation canal on the other. The result is no squirrels or rabbits here, so the birds are pretty comfortable. We have goldfinches (my favorites) here nearly all year, house finches, sparrows, juncos, blue jays, doves, red-winged blackbirds, flickers, hawks and owls. The hawks and my cats do go after them, but rarely catch them. When they do, well, that's part of life! We did have a massive die off of juvenile red winged black birds during the flash freeze in fall of 2014. That was heartbreaking!

My better half was watching me fill the feeders one day this summer and when I came back in he asked me if I knew how many birds were in the trees, watching me, too and just waiting for me to go in so they could feast. He said they came down like a cloud as soon as I got to the front door. The sound of that many birds in flight at close range is really something!

Skybird does tease me a bit about my affinity for house sparrows and blackbirds, but all are welcome here! Her set up is amazing, she has things to contend with that I don't. My approach is much more relaxed because I don't have squirrels.

I did come to placing the feeders where I could see them while sitting on the couch in the living room. It's usually much more entertaining than TV. My next project is a heated birdbath as the little darlings do need water and the canal starts freezing over this time of year .

I agree with Skybird, just start with a feeder, somewhere. You will be rewarded.

Barb

I have hummingbird feeders all along the gutters on the covered part of our deck all summer as well as some on shepherd's hooks in the front yard. I also have 2 seed feeders that are filled year round out front but can't see them from the windows easily. I also have a variety of cake feeder cages that I fill with different selections based on what I'm seeing most at the time. I have 2 large feeders that I haven't filled in a while--my husband claims the patio under the deck as his own and they cause quite a bit of a mess down there since I had them on the deck. Need to find a couple of large outdoor rugs to contain the mess and get them filled again. I haven't migrated to a single seed fill yet, found a mix that the birds seem to like here that contains dried fruit and large seeds. I don't have a solid surface under the feeders though so might be missing that some seeds are being rejected. One of my feeders is attacked by squirrels much more so than the 2nd so it's refilled much more often--I'd rather feed the squirrels seed mix than have them eating my chair cushions! We have 2 water features that go year round so I've never filled a bird bath. If I move my computer chair back a yard or so I can normally see a variety of birds sitting on the head rock where the water is forced out in the front feature--as long as I'm careful and keep it filled it never stops or freezes over at that point, down from there typically has a thick coat of ice over moving water though the entire winter. Struggled with different water hoses over the first several years until a coworker purchased one of the light weight ones that stretch out as they're filled as a gag Christmas present for me a few winters ago--they might be too fragile for normal use but I swear they're the best thing invented for filling a waterfall in snow! Easy to carry out and back in without getting soaked with every use.

Misty, first of all, very glad to hear you are feeling better, and prayers go out for your full and speedy recovery.

Raptor programs are pretty neat! It's not often we get to be so up close and personal with these critters. Bird feeding is a heck of a lot of fun, too, it's really cool to see new birds that you may not get the opportunity to see very often when they show up. I'm partial to the "LBJ's" (little brown jobbies) that you would probably be apt to simply pass off as "just another sparrow" until you have to chance to look closely at them and see how different they all are, the amazing amount of color and patterns between them.

Millet has it's place, though there's a couple different kinds. I think red is the bad one, and milo only attracts house (or English) sparrows I believe, which are an introduced and pest species. But white millet scattered on the ground or put in a tray feeder is beloved by all ground feeding birds, like juncos, doves, towhees, and the many other native sparrow species (juncos and towhees are actually sparrows, too). But if you are getting a lot of house sparrows, which it will also attract if they are in the area, you might want to refrain from doing that. They are bullies and will chase away all your "good" birds. Black oil sunflower seed is is a very common seed that appeals to wide variety of birds, but it is also a favorite of squirrels and blackbirds and grackles, which many people do not like at their feeders. I don't mind blackbirds and grackles so much. They may scatter some of the smaller birds, but in my experience they will come, eat, then leave, and the little birds come right back. But if you don't want them, safflower seeds is typically unpalatable to them, although, they will eat it come late winter when food is really scarce. Squirrels don't seem to eat it all from what I've seen, no matter what.

A TURKEY!!!! That is so cool, Skybird, and hilarious! You sure wouldn't be expecting THAT in Thornton, that's for sure! Of course, we sometimes put out corn cobs for the squirrels, and one day we had mallard duck sitting on the ground gobbling up all the kernels that fell! Not as "rare" as a wild turkey in the city, but still pretty funny! Also how is that "peanut log" you made working out for you? It sure looks like the birds would love it.

I watch the Little Brown Jobbies too, Zach, but even when I
do get one I’m not familiar with I usually have a really hard time trying to
figure out what it is! There are SO many
of them! Sometimes my Birds of Colorado
book helps to narrow it down, but they usually don’t hang around long enough
for me to be looking in my other books and then looking at the bird again to
try to be sure of anything! At least I
know more now of the “things to look for,” beak color, head markings, wing
bars, and such! When I first started
seriously watching I’d just go: Oh, look
at the pretty little brown bird!!!

I do seem to have made a pretty serious mistake last week
though! I’ve had a bag of “mixed” seed
(98% millet!) in the shed for several years, and, since I haven’t had any house
sparrows (sorry Barb, but, the “rats of the bird world!”) around since I’ve
only been feeding sunflower, safflower, and thistle, I thought it would be SAFE
to put some out for “a few days!” Well,
it only took ONE day for the rats, uh, mean house sparrows, to find it, and
they VERY quickly became habituated to my yard again! Took the “millet feeder” down again (might be
giving Barb the seed!), but They’re Here Now!
With no more millet for them they’re now hanging on my suet feeders and
eating that! Grrr! That’s fairly hard work for them and I
suspect they won’t hang around too long when they find the millet isn’t gonna
be put back out! In my opinion the Olde
World should have KEPT their Olde World Birds!
Just like with plants, “imports” seem to rarely work out very well!

The “log” I created last year didn’t work out very
well! I had peanuts and other nuts and
peanut butter in it, but I only ever had a few birds check it out, and then it
just hung there! I finally took it down
and stuck it in the garage so I could use the hook for something else! BUT! A
couple days ago I saw birds eating “something white” that a squirrel had
dropped on the top of the fence (behind the disintegrating lattice), and when I
went out to check it out it turned out to be an apple! I decided if the birds would eat apples I’d
find a way to put some out for them (I “rescued” the apple to start with
that!), so, after thinking about it for a while I decided to “resurrect” my
“log feeder” and see what I could do with that!
First I had to scrape all the dried peanut butter off of it, and then I
wound up taking the single hook out of the end of it and put eyelets in both
ends, and then made a hanger by tying “edger line” to the two eyelets, making a
loop for hanging. Then I put four “sets
of two” finishing nails in the “top” side of it, I cut the apple in half and
stuck the two pieces on two “sets” of nails, and cut a “going downhill” pear in
half and stuck those two pieces on the other two sets of nails! Hung it out, and it’s gotten a little
interest, but very little so far! I’ll
probably keep some fruit out there for a month and see how many takers I
get! And, I was reading about eggshells
for the bird’s gizzards a few days ago, so I boiled a couple eggshells I had
saved and crushed them up in “small hand-broken pieces” and put them in a
couple of the holes I had drilled last year that are “facing up” enough for
things to not fall out of them. Just did
that yesterday and am still watching to see how many takers I get! Otherwise I might try putting a few nuts in
the few holes that are still useable now that the log is horizontal rather than
vertical! Will be testing things out!

If you want to see what I’m talking about, the “vertical”
log from last year is visible in the “squirrel on top” pic above, and the (now)
“horizontal” log is most visible in the pic right above that one. It’s also visible in the second pic from the
top, but you “need to find it” since I wasn’t specifically taking pics of “just
the log!” In that second pic from the
top (and two others) you’ll see a “big green feeder!” That’s what had the millet in! It’s the kind of feeder where the “door slams
shut” when you get too much weight on the perches! One of the things I tried years ago when I
had SO many squirrels! (Since one of the
dead cottonwoods has been cut down I have fewer of them now—gratefully!)

I didn’t think of it when I posted, but, yeah, you’re
right! Squirrels DON’T eat
safflower! As a matter of fact, that was
the main reason I started buying it a buncha years ago! And the house finches—and other things—seem
to love it. As a matter of fact, when
it’s really cold out they seem to gravitate more to the safflower than the
sunflower! Tho, when it’s THAT cold out
they’ll eat just about anything you put out there for them—especially when
there’s snow cover! So, Misty, is you
see this you might want to look for a small bag of safflower rather than sunflower
since you have the squirrels! It might
help you be “more successful” with “less frustration” when you first start to
feed!

And, from my experience, the juncos will eat just about
anything that falls under the feeders!
When there’s snow cover I get CLOUDS of them! They’re all over my yard—eating seed that
dropped under the two junipers, and under the feeders—and I’ve already seen
them on and under the Rudbeckia seedheads, which I intentionally left standing
this year since I discovered last year that the seeds would be eaten! I also had a junco hanging onto—or trying to
hang onto—one of my suet feeders yesterday!
I have one of them hung by some of the very small branches, so maybe
I’ll see them up there more eating suet!

Scattering the millet on the ground here would be a
catastrophe! Tho it might be fun to see
the blackbirds fighting with the house sparrows to see who would win! The doves would love it—but they get plenty
of the droppings from the feeders, and they’ll eat just about anything that
lands on the ground too! In my experience
with blackbirds, when they come they STAY.
There have been times when, between the trees and the ground in my yard,
there have probably been a hundred of them!
I simply can’t afford to feed herds of blackbirds—not to mention all the
noise, and POOP all over the place—AND the fact that the Little Birds tend to
stay away when they’re here! If I knew
Barb wouldn’t read this I’d say Down With Blackbirds! Oops, I said it! (I don’t actually hate them—just wish they’d
stay away from my feeders!)

The Turkey was quite interesting, Zach! I happened to look out the front window and
saw a turkey—and thought I was imagining things! I went out in the yard to look—and still half
thought I was hallucinating or something—but it really was there! (Where on earth does a WILD turkey come from
in the City???) By then it was going
between the houses to the back and I kept watching as long as I could see it
and then decided to go in and see if I could find it in back, but as I started
to walk toward the house I saw a car going VERY slowly down the street and it
stopped in front of my house! I looked
for a minute and started to walk over to it and asked the woman (with a young
girl in the car too) if she was looking for a turkey—was it hers??? Ok, I admit that was a crazy question, but I
was still trying to figure out if I was seeing things!!! She said it “wasn’t hers” but she had seen it
and was trying to “watch” it! I’m not
the only one who was shocked by a wild turkey in suburbia! I told her it went between the houses and I
didn’t know where it was! Went in and
out to the backyard—WITH my camera—and that’s when I saw it on the neighbor’s
roof! Crazy day! I can’t even imagine how it got “this far
into the city!” I’m TWO MILES east of
I-25, and there’s a whole lot more houses east of me before you get to
“country!” I don’t think they can fly
very far, so I hope it managed to get “back out into the wild somewhere!”

When I worked at Center Greenhouse, before Paulino’s, one
year we had a mallard build it’s nest at the base of one of the bigger trees in
the nursery! That area was “roped off”
and the tree was “not for sale” until after the eggs had hatched and the brood
had made it safely back out of “the nursery,” so to speak! That may have been the most WATCHED Momma
Mallard EVER!

Gotta go! Just spent
more than an hour posting on both threads!

What were you able to see at O’Toole’s, Misty, Barb, anybody
else?

Skybird

They were just getting set up when we got there, Skybird. We saw a hawk - gosh, I don't remember they breed now unfortunately!! Barb - do you remember?! It was really cool to see one so close up! She was explaining that it was one that was raised in captivity for falconry, but it was a bit too "verbal" and scared away the prey! So some how or other, the birds of prey group acquired it and use him for their demos. He kept "cooing" - very pretty!

I left at about 11 - Barb, did you see any more birds while you were roaming around afterwards?

Wow - I had no idea feeding birds could get so involved! LOL. I will start off small and see what happens. Thanks for the tip on the safflower seeds - I will look for some of that. What about Amaranth seeds? I grew some amaranth this year and it's going to seed. Maybe I should collect that and put in the feeder? I haven't used any for myself, just grew it to see if it would do well - which it did! I got the seed from one of the RMG members, not sure if she's still active or not. I don't think I have the packet any longer, so not sure if it's a decorative variety rather than a edible variety. Any one know the difference?

I looked at the bird feeders at O'Tooles, but they were a bit pricey. There was one plastic one, but Barb thought the cold temps may crack it and the little perches weren't very strong, either. Then as we were talking, I recalled I had some bird houses that I used as decoration awhile back (but gave up on because the wasps used them for their nests!). I'm going to try and use one of them for a DIY bird feeder - at least to begin with. Or I'll check the big box store to see what ones they might have for a more reasonable price than O'Tooles. I did buy a small poinsettia at O'Tooles, because it was such a pretty variety and also as a thank you for their event.

Marj

I left not long after you, Marj. Nature's Educators brought a a Swainson's hawk. They had said they were bringing out a second bird, but hadn't when I left. The hawk was quite the talker and a beautiful bird!

I don't know if the birds would eat Amaranth seed. It might be worth a try. Do you ever see the birds in your yard feeding from it? I do leave the dried sunflower, coneflower, and coreopsis stalks up until I know they've been picked clean. I never thought of collecting the seed an putting it in the feeders!

I was surprised at the feeders. They had super cheap plastic ones in very bright colors for about $8 and then jumped up to $35 and kept climbing for the sturdier/fancier ones. I was hoping they'd have something in between to get you started. It seems like I picked up a standard tube feeder at Ace for about $12 and it was much sturdier than the $8 ones at O'Toole's. I know you'll find something that works for you and have fun experimenting with feeding.

It was sure nice to see you, Marj! I'm glad you're doing well and that we got to spend a little time together.

Barb

If you live close to one Tuesday Morning carries some really nice feeders and they're normally priced pretty well. Amazon.com is one of my favorite sources, though--good prices and I can be very lazy as I shop...

Liz, I’m surprised you find Amazon to be a good deal! In the last week I bought several things
online, and 3 (or 4?) of them were from eBay!
Every time I’m looking for something I start with Walmart and eBay, and
then I usually check on Amazon just to be sure they don’t have a better
deal—and I, only VERY rarely, find a better deal on Amazon! Usually the item itself is higher than WM or eBay,
and then I almost always have to add shipping for Amazon. After this last week I’m about to stop
wasting time even checking Amazon! I
have bought things from them a couple times—but that seems to be the exception
to the rule for me! (This past spring I
found Soil Moist polymer on Amazon, 30 lbs. for $200.00—with free
shipping—which beat eBay, Greenhouse Megastore, and a couple other places! Every now and then they do come out the best!)

With eBay I just set the search parameters for things with
free shipping and then look to see what I can find.

I had never even thought about looking on Amazon—or eBay for
feeders, but decided to give it a try when I saw your post, and here’s an
example of what I’m talking about! When
I first started looking I was finding all kinds of cheap things (a single suet
cake for $1.50), and then there was anywhere from 5.00 to 10.00 added on just
for shipping! I don’t care if you’re
shipping it around the world ten times, it doesn’t’ cost $10 to ship one suet
cake! I looked thru a whole buncha pages
with stuff like that, and this just happened to be on the page where I decided
to stop looking. It a cheapie plastic thistle
feeder for $12.01—which is WAY overprices for what it is, and THEN they want
$9.79 SHIPPING! That makes it $21.80 for
a cheap plastic feeder that shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be more than
$5! Ok, so it’s a Droll Yankees
product! They used to make really good
stuff, fairly expensive, but a good product.
That was years ago! Now their
prices have doubled—and half their stuff is “Walmart made in China cheap!” So I don’t know what the “MSRP” is for this
plastic feeder, but even if the $12 is anywhere near the suggested price, the
extra almost $10 shipping makes it outrageous!

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_4?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A2972638011%2Cn%3A553788%2Cn%3A553632%2Cn%3A4532514011%2Ck%3Awild+bird+feeders%2Cp_n_feature_ten_browse-bin%3A3587765011&page=4&sort=price-asc-rank&keywords=wild+bird+feeders&ie=UTF8&qid=1481085129

Having said all that, if you or Misty, or anybody is
interested in a pretty good METAL thistle feeder, I found a really good one at
King Soopers for $10—actually, it’s $9-something! It’s a black metal “tube,” and I’ve seen it
in 2 or 3 stores, so I kind of assume it’s in most of their stores! ALSO, if anybody wants just a thistle “sock”
(which is what I’ve used for years till if found the one at KS), you can get
them—filled with thistle seed—at WM for somewhere around $5. That would be the same thing as shown in this
pic on eBay, where they want $20.40 for
it!!! But, hey, the shipping is
free!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wild-life-Accessories-S-10014-Thistle-Sock-Small-/391439223374?hash=item5b23988a4e:g:oDkAAOSwXshWsdsO

After I gave up on Amazon I decide to see what I could see
on eBay for feeders, and it’s beyond me how they can get (either place) what
they’re asking for most of these feeders!
I guess I have to assume that most of the people ordering them just
don’t have a clue how much they should cost!
(About a year ago I found a “pet store” in Wisconsin that had some flour
moth traps I wanted, so I looked thru the rest of their wild bird stuff and I
got some (empty) thistle socks that were 2 in a box for $5, so $2.50 each! I ordered a couple boxes of them since they
were so cheap—and all my old ones were starting to disintegrate—and the
neighbor CAT had torn some of them wide open with its claws when it tried to
hang onto something to EAT my birds! But
for starting to feed thistle, I recommend a pre-filled sock from WM!

I highly recommend feeding suet in winter—it’ll attract
hairy/downy woodpeckers, flickers, and some other things—occasionally a
nuthatch and a couple more. (And
squirrels!) Suet feeding is relatively
cheap—well, if you’re not buying on Amazon or eBay—from what I saw! A suet cage at WM used to be a couple
dollars, but it looks like they changed brands and it’s now $5! But when I searched I noticed that Home Depot
still has them for $3! Then I noticed
that the Drs. Foster ad was the next ad—and I remembered that that was the
place in Wisconsin I ordered from! Their
price is 2.99 too, if you get up to minimum $19 order for free shipping—which
is way better than the Amazon minimum of $49!

https://www.google.com/search?q=suet+cage&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=suet+cage+walmart

When I saw the name of Drs. Foster I went back and
discovered I still had the links for the things I had ordered, so here’s some
more info! Remember there’s a $19
minimum order for free shipping!

Here’s the thistle socks I got.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=9089+10468+14468+21987&pcatid=21987

I didn’t get one—already have enough!, but here’s their suet
cage.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=9089+10468+27369&pcatid=27369

The other thing I got from this place was a new birdbath
defroster. These things are usually very
expensive—no matter the brand, and this is about the best price for a defroster
I’ve ever found! I got the 75 watt
one—my “birdbath” is a BIG plastic plant saucer, so there’s quite a volume of
water! It MORE than keeps the water
“defrosted”—as a matter of fact, at times it borders on “warm,” which is really
not the intent of a defroster! They’re
just supposed to keep the water from freezing!
I also like “this kind” because it has a “flat surface” that the birds
can stand on—most defrosters have exposed “coils!” There’s also a 50 watt one—here are links to
both. (The last defroster I got before
this one was almost $50!)

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=9089+8776+18099&pcatid=18099

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=10507&cmpid=10cseYY&ref=XXXX&subref=AA%26catargetid=530005150000154233%26cadevice=c%3Fref=6111%26cmpid=10csegb&gclid=COaNhKbN6MgCFQiQaQod03gL8w

For the suet cakes that go in the suet cage I very highly
recommend getting them at WM! Their suet
cakes range from 90-some cents to $1.29 each.
I HIGHLY recommend the Peanut Delight No Melt Suet Dough! I’ve been using this one for several years
now, and over the years I’ve bought others to compare them and, invariably,
this is the type that gets gone before all the others! Yesterday I just bought 10 more of them and
they were $1.29 each at WM. There have
been times, at other WMs, that I was only charged 90-something for them. I think the people inputting the prices in
the computer get mixed up, but I’ve never paid over $1.29 for them!

https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/images/Product/large/06667001.jpg

For a basic tube feeder, this isn’t too bad a price! It has 4 METAL ports, meaning the squirrels
can’t “destroy” the feeder even if they do get on it—but they CAN eat all the
seed! Another advantage of this one is
that it has a tray on the bottom, which keeps the seeds that inevitably fall
out of the ports on the tray, rather than on the ground where the squirrels eat
them! (When I’ve bought tube feeders
that did not have a tray I always improvise and attach some sort of a tray
myself!) Here are links to two sellers
on eBay, one for $29.89 and the other for $31.25—the cheaper seller has a
slightly better rating! (I sure don’t
understand why some of these links are so much longer than others!)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perky-Pet-Deluxe-Seed-Silo-Wild-Bird-Feeder-with-Tray/172317735626?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D38530%26meid%3D584669d94125420cb57400eb55f44943%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D151849939036&rt=nc

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perky-Pet-112SCAN-Deluxe-Seed-Silo-Wild-Bird-Feeder-with-Tray-/151849939036?hash=item235af6305c:g:-CYAAOSwFNZW1Ph5

And here’s a WARNING about when you’re shopping on eBay—or
Amazon! Be sure you know what your
looking at! I found THIS for
$30.75! From the price one would assume
one was getting a whole bird feeder! One
would assume! All you’re getting in this
case for $30.75 is a TRAY that goes UNDER a feeder! THIRTY DOLLARS for a TRAY! Enuf said about that!!! (For one of my feeders I punched holes in and
attached a clear plastic coffee can lid to the bottom of the feeder!)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Droll-Yankees-CCT-S-Clear-Clever-Clean-Wild-Bird-Feeder-Bird-Seed-Tray-10-5in-/122236374456?hash=item1c75db0db8:g:1GkAAOSwux5YQCWI

AND----here is one of my favorite feeders! I got this a couple winters ago at Murdoch’s,
and have been looking for another one there every time I go there! No luck!
So one time I went online looking for it and I found Old Bob’s! I didn’t buy one at that time ‘cause I think
they were adding shipping, but I just put one in “my cart” and discovered they
have free shipping now! I’m gonna order
a couple for myself, and, IF YOU WANT ONE, MISTY, I’ll order one for you
too! You’d have to come pick it up at my
house—I don’t deliver!!! ;-) (Or you could order one yourself—I don’t see
any sort of a minimum order for free shipping!)

I like this one because it’s for “clingers,” or birds that
can hang on to the “little edge” long enough to grab a seed! Mostly I have house finches using it—and when
they get into my yard, chickadees—which are my favorites! Plucky little birds! BIG birds can’t hang onto it! But, again, if squirrels got onto it they
could eat the seed—if there was somewhere they could hang onto—or they could
knock it to the ground and “chew it open!”
It is just plastic! It’s very
easy to fill and has a clear “hopper” so you can see how full it is. I fill it with layers of sunflower and safflower!

http://oldbobs.com/product/clingers-only-green/

[BARB, DO YOU WANT ONE???]

For seed I recommend WM for small quantities, or Murdoch’s
for large bags of sunflower. (I’ve found
a couple other inexpensive feeders at Murdoch’s too!) Safflower and thistle Barb has been getting
at a place in Brighton for the last year or two, and she’d need to tell you
where! It was a place called Agfinity,
but I think she might have found a different place in the last few months. Thistle we have gotten a big bag and split
it, but I think she said there’s a place now where she can get it “by the
pound” for about the same as a big bag price.

In the past I’ve used Willow Run Feed on 120th at
Chase (Sheridan), but their sunflower price is way higher than Murdoch’s. Most recently I found safflower (40 or 50 lb.
bag) for a pretty good price there.
(Willow Run is where I got my two EXPENSIVE feeder posts—but they’re
really good and were worth the price! I
don’t know what they might carry now!)

http://willowrunfeed.com/

If you want to start with a really, REALLY cheapie feeder,
Misty, WM has a 98¢ little plastic clear tube one with two ports and two little
plastic perches! I discovered it one
time when I was out trippin’ and was looking around WM for a couple other
things! (Have seen it in other WMs since
then!) I take seed and peanuts and other
Critter Food with me when I’m trippin’, and when I saw the 98¢ one I got it and put some of the seed in
it for the birds—rather than the Ground Critters! I take a long enough piece of heavy twine
with me to tie it over a porch beam, or in a tree—or somewhere! So now I feed the Ground Critters AND the Sky
Critters when I’m out trippin’! BUT, a squirrel
would destroy this thing in less than a minute if they got on it!

As long as I have enough time I check the “wild bird
section” in just about any store I’m in.
If you keep looking at different places you really can find some good
deals—and feeding the birds doesn’t need to be outrageously expensive! Considering the enjoyment I get out of
watching them—and knowing how much I’m helping them, especially in winter—I think
the money is well spent!

Skybird

I buy most of my feeders at yard sales and pay no more than a few dollars for them. Although I have purchased two feeders from The Wild Birds Unlimited store in Westminster. Their feeders are pricey. But they are quite tough and have a lifetime guarantee so if any parts wear out or get broken or stolen by a squirrel (yes, i've had it happen!), they will replace the parts absolutely free. Their feeders also come apart nicely for cleaning.

I have a spare thistle feeder if someone wants one and what I think is a peanut feeder. It has larger like chicken-wire size holes.

I have a bunch of different suet feeders. Last year, I got disgusted with the way the squirrels ripped all the suet out of the regular feeder, so I bought one with smaller holes made by Duncraft. It was pricey but I felt it was worth it to try to thwart the squirrels.

Nothing fancy, but finally did get a bird feeder out - one for the little guys. And saw my first birds dining at it today! Surprised because of the wind, but that didn't deter them too much. They zip in for a morsel, then zip back to the trees. Fun!

Terrible pic, but just to show you - will have to keep my tripod handy so I can get better pics in the future. Looks like a finch of some sort. Zach/Skybird - know the name?

That's a black capped chickadee, Misty! They're my favorite "small" bird! And, yes, chickadees do fly in, grab a seed, and fly back off to eat it! They'll be eating the sunflower in your mix. They're "plucky" little birds, usually the smallest ones you'll see! Very easy to identify!

With millet (the little round tan seeds) out there you'll probably wind up with house sparrows, the "rats" of the bird world in this country. They're "foreign" to this land, "imported" like a lot of our "noxious weeds" are! Google them so you know what they look like, and if they show up, next time fill the feeder with just sunflower and they'll mostly go away again! If (when) they do show up they'll come in huge herds and will tend to scare away the other smaller birds that are more fun to watch. But, in the beginning you'll probably be glad to watch anything that shows up! They'll empty your feeder very fast, and very likely if they show up you won't see much of the chickadees anymore.

The next "most likely" bird that will show up is house finches, so you might want to google them too! The males have some red on them, females are pretty ordinary brown/tan. In winter some of the males' "red" is more yellowish/orangeish!

Now that you have a feeder I'm guessin' you'll be hooked really fast!

Enjoy!

Skybird

We also get mountain chickadees, which have white "eyebrows." And Skybird is right, just about the "pluckiest" bird you'll find at the feeder. They nearly come right up to you. The other most fearless bird, and funny because they are tied with the chickadee for smallest (besides hummers, which are also pretty bold), is a bushtit. I have walked right up to flocks of them on a feeder and they don't even bat an eyelash.

House finches I think are under appreciated. Look closely, and you might find what I call "rainbow sherbet" finches. Apparently it comes from not eating enough of whatever makes them red during their annual molt.

Yes, Zach! And I never got back to thank you! I still get the Big Nasty Popup, and since I can't get rid of it without signing in or x-ing out of it on every single thread, I don't very often even read anymore!

But thank you for letting me know what--new to me!--bird I have! Back when I posted that I had a dozen or more of them here for a few days, then they mostly went away, and recently I've had a couple/few of them showing up every day--they only go to the suet, have never seen them even approaching any of the other feeders--which I have a total of 13 out right now!

When I first saw them they didn't really look "right" for juncos, and their tails seemed too long, too, but when you said bushtit--no question that's what they are! It's frustrating when I don't even have a clue what something is, and I sit here flipping thru my--up to 400 pages!--bird books! I really appreciate your taking the time to let me know what they were!

The only place I've ever seen a mountain chickadee is--well--uh--in the mountains! I only get black capped here. Maybe I'm too far east to get the mountain ones!

Yeah, Zach! House finches do definitely come in a "variety of colors" in winter! Years ago I used to think I was seeing "something new," and then I started to figure out that they changed considerably over winter--kind of like goldfinches, which often aren't very "gold" in winter, tho I rarely get them in winter! I have often wondered just exactly what it is in their diet that allows them to "brighten up" in summer, a/k/a during mating season!

I'm having a pretty good winter, flicker & downy-wise! Get a couple showing up almost every day! Today I had three flickers on the feeder posts at the same time! That doesn't happen very often! But still haven't seen any yellow flickers this year! Still hoping one or two will show up--they're pretty amazing!

Skybird

Oh good, I'm glad you saw it, and I'm glad I could help you figure it out! It can be frustrating to figure out what some of these things are, I think bushtits are one that took me a while to figure out, too. One thing I like is allaboutbirds.org ID page gives you a few similar looking species to give you "options" for what it is you are seeing, of course you need a "starting point" for that to work. Anyways, the bushtits come to mom's feeders intermittently in late winter, sometimes they come in pairs or handfuls, but last time I saw them there were over two dozen! They are pretty regular for a few days and then they just seem to vanish for weeks at a time before they come back.

Mom gets the mountain chickadees mostly in the winter, I'm guessing it's like a "mini migration" where they come down to lower elevations looking for food and nicer weather. They are less common at her house than black capped for sure.

We get waaaaay more goldfinches in winter than in summer, actually! Although every once in a while the flock comes by and they like to hover over my flowers and catch the bees as they are looking for nectar! I would appreciate it more if I didn't like the bees, but birds gotta eat too I guess.

Last winter we had two pairs if downy's in the neighborhood, this year, while I am no longer able to watch the feeders every day, I'm thinking there is only one pair. Flickers have started to show up over there a lot more and I'm pretty sure I saw a hybrid red-yellow shafted one. And I think I've told you about the county open space/greenbelt that is behind the house. Well the other day I was back there walking and I scared up two Wilson's snipe, which after having spent my entire childhood playing in the little creek I have NEVER seen before. Naturally I had left my camera at home...

I didn't leave my camera at home for the sandhill cranes when we went down to the San Luis Valley this past weekend however. We're unlikely to see these guys at our feeders, but the Fish and Wildlife guys down at Monte Vista estimated over 20,000 are spending the spring down that way. I'll give you a little teaser here, but, well, you know me and I'll go ahead and make a new thread about the trip full of pictures.

Wow! VERY cool, Zach! Several years ago when I was staying at a place on the Middle Loop River right smack dab in the middle of Nebraska (in the "sand hills!"), the owners of the house where I was staying said I should come back sometime for the sandhill crane migration! They said it was absolutely amazing! I had the best of intentions of doing it sometime, but it seems that since that trip ('14) I've only ever gone west and south! Kinda the wrong directions! Don't know that I'll ever head back up Nebraska-way again--tho I really would like to go up to visit the Custer Massacre Site sometime--and I really, really would like to do another Candlelight Tour at Wind Cave again sometime, so one never knows! They said the cranes usually come thru in April sometime!

It'll be fun to see your pics when you have time to post them,

Skybird

Thanks for the id! A black capped chickadee!! I'm going to have to keep the link you sent, Zach, handy to help me as more birds (hopefully) start showing up. I'll keep an eye out, Skybird, for too many "rats" showing up - lol. I don't mind sparrows, but yea - if they discourage the others birds, then I may change out the seed to something they don't prefer. I've had the house finches before - that's they type that made a nest in my Wisteria a couple of years ago and I got an upclose view as the babies grew!

That rainbow sherbet finch is cute, Zach - name and all!

Yeah, I think they are different subspecies of sand hill cranes in Nebraska, not that you can tell by looking at them, definitely a big migration spot up there. Funny story, the Sand Hills of Nebraska were originally giant dunes parked right here where Denver sits today! Over time the wind moved them eastward to where they are now. Anyway... Since you only ever go west and south, Monte Vista is BOTH of those things from us here haha.

I love that website, Misty, and now you need to get an eBird account, too, lol. A good field guide is a great thing to have handy as well, but I don't recommend the "bird's of Colorado" type ones, way too limited. I'd get a regional one, like "Western Region" to really get a good idea of what is here and when. I use Stoke's but Sibley's is also good. Happy birding, and right now is the perfect timing, we should be seeing the migrators moving in in just a few weeks!

I (again) agree with Zach! The Birds of Colorado Field Guide is very limited, and I have way more birds than are in it--I have the paper one! Tho sometimes it does help a little to steer me in the right direction to figure out what I'm looking at--or help me with something that's in the "notes" about each bird!

My original book was/is Golden, A Guide to Field Identification, Birds of North America (1966), and it's good and has served me well--but all the pages are starting to fall out! (I still use it!)

Several years back I followed that one with National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North American (500 pages), and it's really good--but, like I implied above, it can be intimidating sometimes when I "don't know where to start!"

I also have Birds of Denver and the Front Range, and that one, too, helps point me in the right direction sometimes, but it's even more limited than the Birds of Colorado one, so not worth the money (it was a gift!)

The one thing I DO find useful in having several different books is that I can check the pics in each of them to try to figure out if I'm right about an ID--since the pics in the books can vary so much! But the internet helps a lot nowadays too, so it's not as important as it used to be!

I've been using the All About Birds guide for a long time, Zach, but that doesn't always work either--even with their "shapes" and such. Trying to figure out "what you're looking at" when you "don't have a clue" is still a problem, IMO! That's why I really appreciate your suggesting that what I had was bushtits! I had looked and looked that day, and had ALL my fingers in different pages of my books--as often happens!

Frustrating to ID them or not, it is SO worth watching them! Can't imagine living "without" the birds anymore!

Misty, you'll definitely know when the House Sparrows show up! They really do travel in FLOCKS--and your feeder will be empty VERY fast if/when they find it--and half the seed will be on the ground, just 'cause that's what they do!

Skybird

My very first field guide as a child was the red National Audubon Society field guide. I loved that book and I even started to write down when and where I saw different birds in it. I had it for YEARS, up until very recently. It MAY be in storage at dad's house, but I don't know. One thing I don't like about that book is that you have to go between the pictures section in the front, and the "notes" section in the back. I'd rather have ALL the information together in one place.

I bought the Stokes guide to carry with me when I got my first job in public lands/natural resources. I liked it because it had photographs which I prefer over drawings, though, that is a matter of personal taste. I totally agree with Skybird, however, that having multiple references is a great asset to identification. The internet is great (just pull up a Google image search of any bird in the world and there will be dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of pictures) but I don't carry the internet with me in the field, and you know, There's nothing like a good old reference book. I have been thinking about getting the Sibley guide to add to my growing collection of books. I also have "Better Birding" which is not necessarily a "field guide" but helps in identifying some trickier species, a couple books on gardening and landscaping with birds and wildlife in mind, and a "backyard bird photography" book. Maybe I don't need Sibley JUST yet....

LOL! In my bird book with the falling-out-pages I have LOTS of post-it notes stuck on the pages with the birds I "for sure" saw, and the date when I saw them--and where, if it was somewhere besides home in Denver! A few post-its with question marks too, when I wasn't positive! Now my "new" Nat. Geo. book is starting to get post-it notes stuck in IT!

I could NEVER deal with a book that had the pics in one part and the words somewhere else! Wouldn't possibly have the patience for that! It's hard enough to try to ID a bird when I'm sitting here going, "Don't fly away! Don't fly away!" and trying desperately to manipulate my binoculars and keep my fingers in several different pages of a book--or books!

I way agree with the "plain old google search," but ANYTHING can come up in a search, so you need to be really careful that you're looking at the "consensus" and not just picking out a pic that looks like you "want it to look!" Not too long ago I got curious about something and I wound up googling "white people," "black people," "red people," and "yellow people," and several more similar terms, and it was pretty "illuminating" how that all came out! Pretty funny, actually, but pretty sad at the same time! So any internet search definitely needs to be taken With a Grain of Salt!

The All About Birds site is REALLY good for identifying them! On the "Identification" tab, on the bottom, there are always several actual photos, plus, just right of that there's "similar species" info--that can be REALLY helpful! And then on the "life history" tab there's info about what they eat, their habitat, and more! Really useful if you see a bird eating seeds and find out what you think it is only eats insects! For anyone who still hasn't gone to that site, here's one page. I saw these last spring at the cabin where I stay on Grand Mesa. Don't have internet there, so ID'd it in a book first, and then looked it up here when I got back home! There are some elms next to the house that were just starting to leaf out--and they were FILLED with these! VERY cool!

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Tanager/id

Skybird