TGT: Birdies and Other Backyard Wildlife

The suburbs, as we have all heard many times, are a steamroller of environmental destruction: they pave over prime farmlands and wilderness areas, turn wetlands into parking lots for megamalls, turn every minor errand into a drive which produces air pollution, and necessitate the acquisition of mountains of crap to fill over-sized homes that no one really needs but everyone wants, and good luck finding anything else anyway because builders (around here at least) are convinced that one will only buy a home under 2,200 square feet if one is destitute and so they never bother to build one.

Perhaps the only saving grace of the entire institution of suburbia is the ease with which one can introduce children to minor wildlife. Any backyard of any size will at least have dandelions and ants, and with a bit of effort and luck, you can entice many more interesting species into a shared habitat.

We are more fortunate than most: there is the nearby woodlot which is just barely big enough that if you stand on the path you can't see the houses at its edge; in other words, it's not big enough for anything really interesting (bears, deer, coyotes) but it's plenty big enough for anything you'd want to introduce a toddler to. And there are the trees behind our house, which form an unbroken chain (except for one middling-sized suburban road) to the woodlot.

The last owners of our home had four birdfeeders in the backyard, one of which (for large birds) they left behind; the other three had only hooks remaining. This year, we took advantage: we put out a new feeder for finches and another for small non-finch birds, and kept the existing large one filled with mixed birdseeds containing lots of black oiled sunflower seeds. (Non-oiled stripey-looking sunflower seeds are a big draw for squirrels, and squirrels will frighten off birds; so if you want birds, don't get a birdseed with non-oiled stripey-looking sunflower seeds. Yes, those are the cheap ones. On the other hand, we got a mix called "Squirrel-Proof" which contains the stripey kind but it's had something added that squirrels can't stand the taste of, and they're not touching it. So that's another option.) The fourth hook is meant for the hummingbird feeder which I have yet to fill and put out.

One of the new feeders was a little plastic tube with perches and small holes (maybe 3 mm to a side). Finches love these, and finches' favourite food is nyjer seed, so we bought a big bag of that. The other birdfeeder was a "squirrel-proof" model set on springs so that the feeding ports would close if any heavy animal made its way on to it, and we bought some fruit-and-nut mix for that one. The squirrel-proof feeder was more expensive at $30 (the finch feeder was $10) but it works. I've seen the squirrels trying to eat out of it, and they can't.

Last but not least, because I do like squirrels (I just don't want them scaring the birds away from the birdfood) we got some peanuts.

Did it work?

And how.

Last year we got birds, but only grackles, blue jays and doves, to the large birdfeeder (which we kept stocked with the cheap birdseed containing non-oiled stripey sunflower seeds); mostly, we got squirrels, who would eat all of the sunflower seeds and scatter the rest of the seeds to the ground where they took root and grew. Not really the effect I was going for.

This year, we've had--so far--grackles, blue jays, doves, cardinals, goldfinches, chickadees, red-winged blackbirds, crows, robins and woodpeckers. We've had chipmunks and the occasional rabbit. Oh, and squirrels, of course, who love the peanuts and are now so tame that they will approach us within two feet and stand there, wiggling their tales, until we make with their dinner.

The goldfinches will come to the finchfeeder four or five at a time, one per perch, and will eat the whole thing down from full to empty within ten days.

The chickadees will perch on the squirrel-proof feeder, take the bits they like and, in the process, scatter the bits they don't to the ground underneath where the doves, blue jays, cardinals, robins and woodpeckers find a tasty snack. The chipmunk likes the leavings, too. The rabbit, unfortunately, is more interested in my plants.

We've even seen a baby blue jay having a quick snack in the squirrel-proof feeder.

Frances adores all of it.

Whenever she sees a bird, she points it out and screeches, "Look, Mummy! A dove/robin/bluejay/goldfinch/chickadee! Aww, isn't it cute? What a cute little baby bird! Aww!" And she will sit down and watch them for at least a minute at a stretch and sometimes several. She asks to help me fill up the birdfeeders with new seed and will go to the window or the back door to look whenever she hears a birdsong close by.

But her favourites are still the squirrels. If I even so much as mention that I see a squirrel in the backyard, she will race to the door, beg to go out, and then demand peanuts to throw. I let her have them but her throwing arm isn't well-developed yet, so most of them land on the stairs to the deck where the squirrels aren't yet brave enough to tread, most of the time (unless we're inside); so I throw a handful out on to the grass. And then?

"Look, Mummy! A squirrel! A little baby squirrel!"

"Actually, that's a grown-up squirrel."

"A little baby grown-up squirrel! It's so cute. It's got a peanut. It got a peanut, Mummy! It's eating the peanut. What a cute little squirrel!"

"Yes, it is."

"It's running away! It's running away with the peanut. Where is it going, Mummy?"

"It's going home to eat the peanut. It will be back soon."

"There it is! There's the squirrel! The squirrel's on the fence! It's climbing down the fence, Mummy! It's in the back garden! It's in the grass! It found a peanut! It's eating the peanut Mummy!"

"Yes, look at that!"

"It's going away again. Where is it going, Mummy?"

Repeat, until all peanuts are eaten.

The best times are when three or four squirrels are in the yard chowing down those peanuts as fast as their little choppers can chomp. Frances is delirious with excitement. All the squirrels, the cute little baby grown-up squirrels, eating the peanuts! It's too much for mortal toddler to bear. And she never gets tired of it. Every day, the squirrels are just as exciting as they were yesterday.

We have been having a lot of fun with this. Enough fun that some days, for thirty to sixty minutes, we just sit outside on the deck and watch the birds and the squirrels and throw peanuts while Frances screeches at them--and you know, for a toddler, that's damned good. That beats TV. We've been having so much fun with it, in fact, that I am going to make Frances a little book of stories of animals she's seen in our backyard, illustrated with the photos I've taken. She can read it in the winter to remember all of the animal friends she made when it was bright and warm outside.

~~~~~

So if you have a yard, and that yard has any trees, and some of your neighbour's yards have trees, and those trees form some kind of chain (it doesn't need to be close), you can probably reproduce this.

The easiest and the cheapest are the squirrels. Get some plain, unsalted peanuts in the shell, put them out, and if there are squirrels in the area, they will find you. Blue jays also love peanuts so if there are any jays nearby, they will find you too. And blue jays are bold so they won't be shy about taking them.

Goldfinches are also relatively common and easy to please. They like small trees or large shrubs for habitat so a lack of large trees is not an issue. The feeder is cheap ($10) and the nyjer seed is also not expensive. If you are in Canada, you can find nyjer seed at Canadian Tire. And the males are a bright, beautiful, unmistakable yellow (the females are a duller yellow-brown, but still hard to miss), like a canary with black markings. After filling the feeder and hanging it somewhere close to large shrubs or small trees, sprinkle some nyjer seed on the ground so they can see it while they're flying. Once they've found you, they'll be back.

If you want to attract large birds (grackles, jays, cardinals, doves, robins, etc.), any birdfeeder with solid perches and large openings will be fine. You can get a birdseed mix (there are varieties for many different kinds of birds available) or put out peanuts and sunflower seeds. If you want small birds, you will have to get one with small openings or one that's squirrel-proof. Larger birds and squirrels will frighten away small birds.

Footnote A: All bird species herein are from South Ontario. I can't speak for elsewhere, but you could probably google advice for your area.

Footnote B: We keep our cat indoors, in part because she behaves badly when she gets outside often, and in part because I don't want to frighten away the squirrels. If you have cats or dogs that use your yard, this post might not apply. Then again, it might. I really have no idea.

Some resources:

http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=39

http://www.backyardwildlifehabitat.info/index.htm

http://www.wildbirds.com/Default.htm

Posted by Andrea at July 4, 2006 7:39 AM under The Green Toddler

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