After the Hummers Have Gone....... (1 Viewer)

Do you feed the other wildlife? Which birds do you try to attract? :cat:

Hi! Hummers are wonderful and I dearly miss them when they leave, but they are by no means the only birds I feed. I try to attract many different species:

In the summer: I'll have hummers along with evening grosbeaks, hairy and downy woodpeckers, purple finches, American goldfinches, chickadees, assorted sparrows, tree swallows, pine siskins...

In the winter: blue jays, pine grosbeaks, evening grosbeaks, chickadees, common redpolls, woodpeckers

I had to put my feeders away this summer because of a marauding black bear problem in town but I still put a bit of seed on the platform feeder every day. It kept the finches and sparrows around at least. I'll be putting my other feeders out next month to bring in the grosbeaks and woodpeckers. I've missed the woodpeckers this summer and never got to see the babies this year.

Sometimes, if I'm lucky, we'll get a few red foxes hanging around. I dearly love them... they really help keep the rodent population down. A lot of people have a fear of them with rabies and cat killings but that illness is quite rare and if people kept their cats indoors as the town bylaw states (my girls will never go outside), they wouldn't have that problem either... but that's another story!

What is the situation at your place? Do you only feed hummers? If that's the case, you don't know what you're missing!

Welcome to the forum.

Like Tammie, I have several seed feeders, peanut butter on tree bark and suet cakes that attract many other species to the yard (110 so far in the 4 years I've been here). I may be retiring one of the two remaining hummer feeders this week as most of the li'l birds have gone. But there's no dearth of other birds, some of which are still bringing fledges into the yard! Two Dark-eyed Junco fledges (red-backed race) are following mom/dad around the yard, doing their buzzy/rattle-y beg call, and a new male Northern Flicker (red-shafted) has found the peanut butter. :t:

Tammie said:

What is the situation at your place? Do you only feed hummers? If that's the case, you don't know what you're missing!

Welcome to the forum.

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Hi Tammie,

Thanks for the welcome and nice to meet you Tammie - glad to be here! We only moved into this house at the beginning of summer. We haven't done any planting yet as there is just so much to do especially since our old house is still up for sale and $ is tight. All we've done is put out some hummie feeders over the summer and to our surprise - we attracted some!

We plan on making a hummie garden in our backyard in time for next season- so when they return they will love it. These little creatures have made me more aware of my surroundings and now I want to start feeding the other birds. I have noticed goldfinches, chickadees, robins, woodpeckers, bluejays and other unknown birds in my new yard. I have just purchased a nut type feeder that I haven't put out yet....I am trying to figure out the most strategic place to place it away from the squirrels!

I have alot to learn about all this!

None . . .

catwhiskas said:

Do you feed the other wildlife? Which birds do you try to attract? :cat:

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. . . We take the "break in action" and start putting money away for next years visitors!!! :t:

Katy Penland said:

peanut butter on tree bark and suet cakes that attract many other species to the yard :t:

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Hi Katy - nice to meet you! I tried putting out a peanut suet cake last week and JUST THE SQUIRRELS ate it all up!

Oh, dear, they're persistent little boogers, aren't they? LOL! May I ask how you're offering the suet? Is it in a wire cage, suspended from a tree branch?

I used to get squirrels perching on top of my hanging suet box (which holds a 2-pound homemade suet cake) until I removed the wooden lid and replaced it with a metal license plate which I hung at an angle so they couldn't get any purchase on it. Now, to get anything out of the suet box (which is heavy guage wire front and back but wood on the two narrow sides), they have to hang on the side of the tree or on the wire and get a few mouthsful. But at least they aren't parked there for a half-hour at a time, keeping the birds away! :t:

Katy Penland said:

Oh, dear, they're persistent little boogers, aren't they? LOL! May I ask how you're offering the suet? Is it in a wire cage, suspended from a tree branch?

I used to get squirrels perching on top of my hanging suet box (which holds a 2-pound homemade suet cake) until I removed the wooden lid and replaced it with a metal license plate which I hung at an angle so they couldn't get any purchase on it. Now, to get anything out of the suet box (which is heavy guage wire front and back but wood on the two narrow sides), they have to hang on the side of the tree or on the wire and get a few mouthsful. But at least they aren't parked there for a half-hour at a time, keeping the birds away! :t:

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Yes Katy, I put the suet in a heavy wire cage especially made for holding it. I hung it from a shepherds hook 5 feet from the ground. The squirrels, taking turns all day long, made their way up the pole, hung from the pole with their rear paws and grasped the suet cage with front paws and ate and ate and ate. They never left it till they couldn't get anymore out of it!

Oddly enough, I seldom have trouble with squirrels raiding suet. I used to have all kinds of problems with starlings doing that tho' so I started hanging the suet feeders upside down and left them really wobbly. We placed a piece of aluminum on the bottom, the size of the cage so the starlings couldn't even peck through. The woodpeckers have no trouble hanging upside down to feed and they also didn't seem to care if it was really wobbly. Cured the starling problem tho'!
Something you could try for squirrels: for one thing, keep the feeder away from anywhere that they could jump from. If it's on a shepherd's hook, grease the pole with cooking oil from the ground to about 3 feet up. I've been doing that with mine the past two summers and have had no trouble with rodents climbing the posts. You'll have to reapply after rain tho'.

Good luck with the new place. We just moved here last year and have just gone through our second summer here. Keep us posted on the new feathered friends you attract.

I would like to hang my suet from the trunk of the tree so the woodpeckers can see it and get to it easily...how can I do this without those darn squirrels getting at it?

Catwhiskas, I have a terrible time with squirrels. Not only do they try to eat my sunflower hearts and peanuts and suet, they even go after the hummer's nectar as well.




Raccoon baffles (24" long) on my seed feeders have been the only thing that keeps them from emptying these feeders in less than one day's time. I really wanted to put suet feeders on tree trunks to try to encourage the Pileated Woodpeckers to stick around, but it is pointless with the squirrels. The other woodpeckers will come to the feeders, but the Pileateds will not.






In addition to the Redheaded WP and the Redbellied WP posted above, we have Hairys and Downys.


Other birds that come to the feeders:

Rose Breasted Grosbeak




Cardinal and Indigo Bunting

What gorgeous pics Oubliette - what beautiful colored birdies you have- thanks for posting them!

Suet does not have to be hanging in a tree for a woodpecker to go to it. I usually hang mine off a shepherd's hook AWAY from the trees (near enough for them to use the trees for protection but far enough so a squirrel can't jump) to avoid the squirrels and the woodies go to it with no problem at all.