Wow!! That's wonderful.

Yes, we feed the birds. I started doing it in the beginning, and then hubby took over. LOL! We have quite an assortment, woodpeckers, flickers, and then the regulars. We love to watch them!

The squirrels, well they're part of the package deal.... not too crazy about them, though.

Yes, we have been feeding the birds for many years and enjoy watching them so much. We don't have many of the brightly colored ones. Just a few cardinals, an oriole or two, yellow finches and the usual doves, wrens, etc. The humming birds are here year round and we never tire of watching them.

That's a beautiful feeder!

I used to feed the birds, but the feed attracted critters I did not want to attract, bear being the worst, so I quit.

There was one incident that was quite funny. I looked out one day to see a chipmunk and a Steller's jay at the feeder. Next thing I knew the two were having a tussle over the sunflower seeds. They ended up tangled together, fell out of the feeder onto the ground, rolled on the ground for a minute or two and finally the jay flew up into a tree where he proceeded to give the chipmunk what I can only imagine was bluejay profanity laced rant.

We feed the birds and squirrels. I have a male cardinal that year-round pecks at my greenhouse bedroom window. I thought he was doing this in mating season but he was at it today. He flies against it and then sits on the sill looking in and pecks the glass.

I feed the birds during their poor food supply months. First problem were squirrels. I found a way to defeat those and now I can meter out some food for them as needed. My second problem were deer. They were cleaning out all the sunflower seeds every night, damaging the feeder, and it was concentrating too many of the local deer population - not a good thing for the deer. I found a way to handle that problem. It was not to my liking and the birds preferred less elevation of the feeder, but it worked. The ground feeders such as juncos and mourning doves will hardly touch the elevated seeds. Even when the feeder is busy, there may not be enough seed fall for ground feeders. I augment their supply.

At last, most of the birds were happy and I could watch them without large food waste, and then another problem showed up - Wild Turkeys. There is a flock of 7 turkeys that come around once a day. Those are a delight to see, however, the alpha turkey flies up the elevated feeder to take his fill and knock down some seeds. That's okay, but of late, he has been knocking the fill cap off the top of the feeder. This exposes the storage bin to snow and rain. Sometimes, it gets knocked off when he takes flight and at other times, he knocks it off by his antics while perching on the apex of the slick feeder roof.

Today, it was duct tape to the rescue. I added a little thickness around the opening to increase the interference fit of the lid. This may not work because the finish side of the tape is slippery. I'll give it a try. If it does not work, then it will be time to take the feeder down to drill and pin the lid.

I have observed that wild turkeys are grazers. They do not gorge on one kind of food. They prefer to vary what they eat and not fill their crop with only one kind of food. Their style is to slowly stroll while picking up a variety of items.

I saw an interesting flock behavior. This flock of 7 does have a pecking order. Maybe one of the birds is not a relative. When coming upon a dish of food, apparent friendliness evaporates and petty behavior arises. Squabbles appear among a few with the lowest ranking bird getting bullied by higher ranking birds. However, the flock acts in concert when an enemy appears. A neighbor's cat approached the flock; Every bird turned to face the cat and stared at it. Suddenly, 7 beaks were aimed at the cat and the owner of each beak stared directly at the cat. Seeing this, the cat backed away a couple of feet and when it did, the birds advanced an equal amount, but always maintaining a safe distance. This 'dance' continued until the turkeys backed the cat off the property and finally the cat decided to vacate.

We do but we also have to be tricky so as not to feed the squirrels!! The birds have been hungrier than usual this winter---or me have more than usual moved in. I also keep a heated dog bowl out so they have water all winter.

We used to until the squirrels and woodpeckers started hogging all the good stuff and flinging the seed on the ground - also the raccoons started getting to it and wrecking everything.

We have 3 feeders and use sunflower "meaties". All of our feeders successfully thwart the squirrels who are left to compete with doves for what ends up on the ground. We are currently seeing finches, sparrows, cardinals, juncos, a nuthatch, and doves. We have an fenced urban yard, so there are no bears or deer to worry about and we have a dog, so we don't have neighborhood cats stalking the birds either.

Yes, we feed the birds in a big way. DH does all the tending, I do all the enjoying of the birds and other critters that come along with it. So far, no bears, but it is probably going to happen at some time, as they are in the area. There is a protected ground feeder, plus 4 hanging seed feeders and 2 suet feeders for the woodpeckers. All that plus a bath that is heated in the winter.

21 years ago when DH was contemplating retirement he told me that we wouldn't be able to afford to feed the birds on retirement income. Well, somedays I think the birds and etc are probably eating better than we are.

Yes. I think I feed everything here, except possibly the deer, which usually stay at the back of the place.

We have more cardinals here than any other species. I feed them sunflower seeds.

I get salvage pet food donated to me and every morning, back in the woods, I put out a bucket of dog food for the wild hogs and crows come to eat it. In the evenings, I put out a lot more, and the raccoons, hogs, and probably coyotes eat that.

A university hospital with a research facility donates a lot of food, and this last time, I got something called marmoset diet, which is plastic pouches of a food with all kinds of ingredients and smells like bananas. I am going to put some in the suet feeders and see if some of the birds will eat some of it.

We used to feed the birds, but the feeders attracted rats so we stopped.

Yep....like socks....we used to feed the birds. It increased the vole population to "out-of-control" proportions. DH reached down to pull a weed and was bitten by a vole! (Didn't even know the vole was there...and it happened twice!)

That is a beautiful big feeder that your hubby made. We have a total of 6 bird feeders which our squirrels also use. Hubby fenced in a small area in the yard in which he puts bread and peanuts for the crows, blue jays and squirrels. On the deck table we put out wet and dry cat food for stray cats, raccoons and possums. We love all animals.

I only intentionally feed the hummingbirds. They are year round residents here and come to rely on feeders to supplement their winter food sources. Like many others, I used to feed other birds but that attracted too many undesirables. However, since I live in a very natural woodsy area and am not a very tidy gardener, there is lots of plant material and berries to attract them and considering how present and active they are (and how many seedlings pop up from the berried plants) they are apparently finding a lot that interests them.

I came home from running errands the other day to find 4 big fat gray squirrels rummaging through the garden, madly digging holes to bury whatever treasures they had found. And every spring I find traces of these buried treasures in the form of horse chestnut seedlings everywhere, including in most of my planted containers!

Very nice bird feeder.

We feed the birds, especially in winter and have two squirrel proof feeders with baffles on the poles. I also put out suet a lot for the woodpeckers and bluebirds and throw some feed on the ground. I hate the squirrels and chipmunks/ground squirrels and the damage they do, but not feeding in the summer seems to help.

Deer come up all the time to feast on the persimmons that fell from the tree in the far back yard. They don’t bother with the feeders. So far, no raccoons ever have either.

Yes we keep bird feeders out all year long. I do not know who gets more of the food, the birds or the squirrels. We bought one of these as a deterrent for the squirrels years ago, and they played on it and fed for awhile but quickly resorted back to the bird feeds.

I bet the birds will agree that's a beautiful covered bird feeder your husband built!

I haven't fed birds since we moved into town. Too many english sparrows, and not a good sight-line from our windows. We are working our landscaping to be more native-friendly, so maybe someday we'll have birds worth looking at.

Normally I feed the birds only when there is a lack of wild seeds, extreme cold, or snow. In late winter I will feed every day. I only feed between a pint and a quart a day depending on the weather more than that the deer start showing up.

A comment for the people not wanting the food tossed on the ground. Have you actually looked at the birds that are eating the seed on the ground? There are ground feeding birds that have a hard time eating from many bird feeders. A few will only eat from the ground. More birds are probably on the ground surrounding the feeders than on the feeders themselves. If you are worried about attracting rats or mice they are already there no matter if the feed is in a feeder or on the ground. If you are worried about the "mess" you can use those cement patio blocks under the feeders and sweep them clean or just allow the seeds and the hulls to compost where they lay. Rant over.

We feed them November to April 1st. We have a few tube feeders with the thistle seeds, a squirrel proof feeder, a very large house that we sit on the deck rails, the squirrels get to use that and everything they knock off goes to the bottom feeders. Occasionally the doves will also use that one. We have a suet feeder for the woodpeckers, they love suet from the butchers. We also have a feeder that holds a jar of peanut butter, the woodpeckers love that as well. When it gets to the bottom of the jar you can see the smaller woodpeckers getting way in there for the last remnants. We keep the feeders protected from the winds and as high as possible. We love to watch all the activity.

We have two hummingbird feeders year round.

Going by the numbers and species of birds in the yard, my guess is our winters aren't harsh enough feeding is required. Years we did (and that's not recently), we had large populations of english sparrows, then of course raccoons, the ever present deer, sometimes rats. I tried the thistle socks for finches and the chipmunks loved me, took the socks down and I still have the finches.

We do feed hummingbirds year around.

"Sometimes the birds ...

.. feed me", he said.

"Shut up ... you turkey!", is the reply he heard.

o j

Yep, we feed the birds and other critters, have for years. They wait in the trees first thing in the a.m. and descend on the food as soon as it's been put down. When the weather is nice we have our coffee out there every morning, quite entertaining to watch everyone. And the cats love it too. Edited, cause I forgot to add I love the feeder, it is gorgeous.

MiMi your husband did a beautiful job. I did enjoy feeding and watching the birds at my last place. Here it attracted rodents so I don't and I miss it.

We have a humming bird feeder from May 1 until first freeze. We don't feed the other birds until the first snow.

That is awesome!!! I would be thrilled to! Yes, we feed the birds and we feed the squirrels too. We love to sit and watch them eat and chatter amongst themselves.

We have a window feeder-the kind that is actually in the house with mirrored coating so you can see the birds up close, for the cats who sit on top and look down into it. We have a seed feeder on a line-to slow down the squirrels and chipmunks etc, and a Seed and Suet feeder that I can watch from my chair right out the downstairs glass door. That one is the most fun. It brings us many types of woodpeckers, Flickers, Hairys, Downies, this year a Pileated. The funiest part is when the Dad birds, and it is always the males, bring the young ones teaching them where to feed. The babies are clueless about seeds. They must think are you kidding me after being raised on bugs. The fathers stuff them with seeds at first. I had no idea that the males did the transition in so many cases. I love the chickadees who are seriously into the sunflower seeds. We have Stellars Jays which are really big and beautiful. Right this moment it is a Nuthatch. Lots of Gross Beaks. I just love watching them.

Always fed the birds, tolerating the squirrels. Until my neighbor had squirrels to nest in her attic, did much damage to the house. I went to look at what they pulled from her attic and was completely shocked at the big pile of debris. She has a handyman and even tho he inspects and works around the house, he did not notice any openings. The remedial experts said it would have been very hard to detect. No, I don't feed the birds anymore and my cat misses watching them converge on our patio. And I do too.

I don't feed the birds as it attracts too many unwanted critters but I can see where it would bring you joy to watch them.

We did, until the squirrels took to jumping up to the feeder. Then, our entire semi-rural area was warned to remove all feeders because of black bears in the neighborhood raiding them!