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I PUT OUT my first fowl feeder of the season on Thanksgiving and received the celebration began. However there’s extra to feeding the birds than simply filling the feeders, like methods to preserve them secure within the age of elevated illness transmission or methods to present important water within the coldest months, and naturally, a lot wanted ways for outsmarting the squirrels.
Good fowl feeding and extra bird-related knowledge is our subject right now with Julie Zickefoose.
Julie is a wildlife rehabilitator and artist and creator of assorted books, together with a favourite of mine, “Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Exhausting-Luck Jay” (affiliate hyperlink). She lives and gardens on an 80-acre wildlife sanctuary in Appalachian foothills of Ohio. (Above, furry and red-bellied woodpeckers having fun with suet at her Lifelong Feeder, whereas a downy waits close by.)
Plus: Enter to win a replica of “Saving Jemima” by commenting within the field on the backside of the web page.
Learn alongside as you hearken to the Dec. 12, 2022 version of my public-radio present and podcast utilizing the participant beneath. You possibly can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
bird-feeding greatest practices, with julie zickefoose
Margaret Roach: Hello, Julie, and thanks for being right here to information us this feeder season. I’ve received a variety of clients on the market.
Julie Zickefoose: Me too, me too.
Margaret: Yeah. “Saving Jemima” is such an ideal ebook. Each time I see a blue jay, I consider you since I learn that ebook.
Julie: Oh, thanks a lot, Margaret.
Margaret: Yeah. What was that? Perhaps three, 4 years in the past perhaps it got here out? Yeah.
Julie: It got here out in 2018.
Margaret: Oh, so nearly 5 years in the past. O.Okay., good. Additionally, earlier than we get began on the information and so forth, I used to be glad to see that, I believe it’s a 43-year-old journal, “Chook Watcher’s Digest,” that you just’ve lengthy contributed to, however that had ceased operation a couple of 12 months in the past, was shortly reincarnated as “BWD.” An amazing thought for items if you recognize fowl watchers. So, inform us about that simply shortly.
Julie: Effectively, it’s been an all-consuming factor in my life to go from being a freelancer to being a form of de facto editor of a brand new journal [laughter] that’s so… it’s large and exquisite. It’s a print journal, in addition to on-line. And it’s now full-size format. The “Chook Watcher’s Digest” was at all times a digest dimension, very small. And so we’ve got these fantastic new horizons with having the ability to print images and have them seem because the photographer meant.
Stunning layouts by our very proficient designer, Lisa Coe. Our editor, Jessica Vaughan, is doing a fantastic job. We’ve got Daybreak Hewitt, who edited the previous publication, again on board. And so the three of us are of within the traces, Daybreak and Jessica and I, getting content material and ensuring it’s compelling and the best, most interesting we will get.
Margaret: Yeah. Plenty of nice contributors. Completely.
Julie: Sure, fantastic contributors, together with many individuals we’ve used earlier than and a bunch of recent ones, too, who’re intrigued by the brand new format. I’m in control of getting the quilt artwork. For 44 years, we’re the one journal that has at all times featured work on the quilt.
Margaret: Oh.
Julie: Yeah. Lots of people don’t actually understand that, however in the event you suppose again, it’s all work. We don’t need to break that custom. I’m so excited to be in contact with fairly quite a few inventive contacts who’re chomping on the bit to present us lovely issues, and thus far our covers have simply been jaw-dropping. Yeah, very, very enthusiastic about that.
Margaret: So, I’ll give the hyperlink with the transcript the place individuals can be taught extra about BWD, however it’s fairly simple to seek out in the event you put “BWD journal” right into a Google search.
So it’s bird-feeding season, and I believe in perhaps the September-October one of many first new points, you probably did a bit about rethinking summer time fowl feeding. There’s a variety of rethinking occurring, to not point out the value of sunflower seeds [laughter].
Julie: Could I simply provide you with my coronary heart assault du jour yesterday?
Margaret: Sure.
Julie: After I went into the feed retailer for my standard 50-pound bag of sunflower hearts. Now it is a luxurious, I understand that.
Margaret: I simply did the identical factor. Uh-oh.
Julie: Yeah. I received to know your worth there as a result of my worth in Ohio was $91, $91 up from $56, and I stood there and I stated to the individual behind the desk, I stated, “You discovered my restrict. I’m not going to do that.”
Margaret: Wow, wow.
Julie: “I can’t do that.” I did a psychological guidelines of all of the birds coming into the sunflower-heart bounty, and I understand that each one of them have seed-cracking payments, all of them can deal with black oil sunflower, they usually’re simply going to must lump it.
Margaret: Proper. And it’s about… I’ve learn one factor that stated it was about 30 % the burden of the shells. So how a lot you’re saving by solely having edible and never shells, however it nonetheless doesn’t make up for the value differential. I purchased it upfront this 12 months, which implies that you get a early shopping for low cost, however it nonetheless was, I need to say, excessive 70s about.
Julie: Oh yeah.
Margaret: As you stated, it had been mid-50s. And anyway, so O.Okay. However we’re loopy and we’re going to must then shift right down to the common stuff. And that’s all good.
But it surely’s extra difficult than it was on many ranges. I don’t know the place we need to begin, however we’ve learn a lot about illness transmission and so forth, conserving feeders clear, all types of… being a accountable fowl feeder. So perhaps we discuss a bit bit,… are you not feeding in summer time? I don’t feed in summer time as a result of I dwell in a black bear space they usually simply come proper into the yard and-
Julie: Oh, gotcha. Yeah. The black bears have actually solved that drawback for lots of New Englanders and North Carolinians and down the coast, too. Yeah. We don’t have black bears right here in Ohio but, however I’ve give up summer time feeding as a result of I lastly made the connection that the hordes of chipmunks and grey squirrels that destroy my backyard and eat my hibiscus, and many others., and many others., had been proliferating below my feeding program. And I stated, why? And to not point out rabbits, who completely love to scrub up seed below the feeder.
And I stated, why am I doing this? Why am I feeding mass numbers of mammals, after which combating all of them summer time in my gardens?
And the opposite factor that was occurring is I had home sparrows coming from a farm a couple of mile and a half away and gorging on peanuts, and feeding them to brood after brood of younger, which they’d then carry to the feeder and eat the woodpecker peanuts. So I used to be like, wow, I’m having a web unfavourable influence on ecology in my backyard. (Above, a squirrel at Margaret’s.)
Margaret: You’re doing rodents and different undesirable, furry little creatures. And also you’re additionally fostering extra home sparrows [laughter].
Julie: Proper, precisely. And what’s the return? Effectively, probably not that top sufficient to justify doing these issues. So I give up, and it was really so peaceable. It was not having to go service the feeders. Now, I did preserve my fowl tub getting into my WarblerFall fowl fountain, and that was an absolute pleasure to see birds are available in and bathe and drink. However they don’t actually need meals in the summertime. And so I discontinued it.
Margaret: And theoretically, if one has a backyard—and also you’re in a really wealthy pure space, like a protect nearly and a sanctuary—and if one has supplied with the suitable plantings and so forth, and as you say, water, and we will discuss extra about water in a minute.
So the opposite factor is that each time we feed, it looks like the difficulty of sick birds and transmission of illness… and has that figured into atother instances of 12 months, even if you find yourself feeding, use of various feeders or totally different protocols or how are you coping with it? Inform us about home finch illness and the attention illness and so forth.
Julie: Yeah. I uncared for to say that the opposite cause I ended feeding in the summertime is the ailments proliferate so readily. And when home finches are elevating broods of younger and bringing them in, they’re the foremost illness elements in my space and elsewhere, as a result of they’ve low genetic resistance to illness, being genetically inbred from a small introduction in in regards to the Forties on the East Coast. A launch of the birds at JFK airport triggered the founder impact in these birds. All of them radiated out from perhaps a pair hundred birds in that one launch. And so we didn’t have home finches east of the Mississippi earlier than that occasion. [Below, a male house finch; Wikipedia photo by John Benson.]
Margaret: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Julie: Isn’t that loopy?
Margaret: That’s loopy. That’s fast. That was fast.
Julie: They’ve been a part of the avifauna for thus lengthy. However get this, I grew up in Virginia, and once I went north to high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I noticed these little rosy birds singing round city, and I didn’t know the music and I didn’t know what they had been they usually weren’t in my “Golden Discipline Information.” So I needed to ask round and I used to be advised they had been home finches after which advised the story of how they received there. In order that they’ve unfold like wildfire up and down the East Coast, after which they’ve additionally unfold west to the Mississippi they usually’ve really met the western populations there.
And in about 1991 I imagine they contracted a hen illness referred to as Mycoplasma gallisepticum. And that occurred within the DC space. That’s when the primary sick goldfinches began displaying up. They usually then carried that illness all over. And now there’s most likely 35 species of different wild birds which are vulnerable to Mycoplasma, which is home finch illness. It causes conjunctivitis and huge swelling of the attention membrane in order that the birds change into blinded, and it’s a nasty illness. And most of us who feed have seen these birds huddled on the bottom, blinded, unable to see and stated, “Oh gosh, poor factor.” However that must be a sign flag to us that we’re introducing that illness into our yards by feeding.
Margaret: Effectively, and when you concentrate on it, if you concentrate on a feeder, a variety of feeders, what’s it? It’s a collection of little ports [laughter] that I can perch on and stick my head into identical to the earlier buyer did, and over and time and again. So if somebody with the illness sticks its head into the port after which I come there and do the identical factor, properly, there we go. Proper?
Julie: Sure. Home finches take it one higher. They’re evolving with the illness or evolving resistance to it such that it doesn’t are inclined to kill them anymore. However they’ve additionally developed a behavioral resistance to it, in that they’ve discovered to rub their eyes on perches and feeder ports to maintain them open…
Margaret: Oh boy.
Julie: …in order that they will see. So, the dots that I related within the winter of 2020 and ’21 had been that my tube feeders, which I had damaged out after most likely a decade of not utilizing them because of this. I broke out my tube feeders as a result of we had this super-wet winter and I simply couldn’t preserve the seed dry on the platform feeders. And my tube feeders had been really performing because the illness transmission station.
Margaret: Just like the hub. Proper, proper.
Julie: It was the hub [laughter]. If I might see a radioactive map of the feeders with the germs, I started to take a look at my feeders that approach.
Margaret: So now, as a substitute of tube feeders, are you utilizing domed trays, form of floating trays with a dome/baffle-y type of factor over it? Is that what you’re utilizing? [Platform feeder under domeat Julie’s, above, hosting a blue jay.]
Julie: Sure. I’m utilizing a bit recycled plastic sq. perhaps the dimensions of a brownie pan. I’ve purchased quite a lot of plastic domes, and I droop these over all of my feeders. And it’s a little bit of a ache as a result of droppings gather amazingly quick on the domes, however that tells me what could be falling into the meals, if the domes weren’t there. So I mainly simply take the domes down, run them below the tap with the outside hose faucet, and put them again. And I’m a believer as a result of I had 19 goldfinches in my hospital final winter, or two winters in the past once I was utilizing tube feeders. I switched to trays with plastic domes and likewise feeders of wire mesh that don’t have ports, however simply emit the seed in order that the birds can choose it from the tube.
Margaret: Proper. It’s like a vertical cylinder that the seed goes in they usually pull it out by the little hardware-cloth openings, so to talk.
Julie: Precisely. So, no person sticks their head in a port. They only take the seed and go. So these are the 2 kinds of feeders that I take advantage of now. And down from 20 birds in my fowl hospital—I’m a wildlife rehabber—final winter within the winter of ’21-22, I had one.
Margaret: That’s nice.
Julie: Yeah. It’s admittedly a small pattern dimension, and I can’t say with certainty that it’s the tube feeders, however I’ve an actual sturdy feeling that there’s a connection there. [Above, a goldfinch at Julie’s “hospital” with Mycoplasma infection.]
Margaret: So one other factor that I wish to feed within the winter—and we’ve been having actually aberrant heat climate. I awoke this morning and it was 55 levels; it must be 25 or one thing.
Julie: 60 right here.
Margaret: Yeah. So, it’s simply insanity. So I’ve not been placing out suet but, as a result of I often wish to put that out when it’s constantly chilly. However that’s simply my factor. However I noticed in your, I overlook the place, your web site or someplace, I noticed a beautiful tip of a loopy suet feeder that you’ve got that appears like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s not a dangling little sq. basket factor.
Julie: Proper.
Margaret: How did you uncover that?
Julie: It’s completely fantastic. This was one of many beautiful issues that got here by the “Chook Watcher’s Digest” workplace years in the past, from a feeder producer referred to as Lifelong situated in Ohio [photo, top of page]. Pretty man named Hyperlink Llewellyn makes these feeders. If I can describe it, and also you’ll have images.
Margaret: Sure, sure, sure.
Julie: If I can describe it, it’s mainly two perforated steel plates that seem like they’re simply drilled with rows of holes. They appear really precisely like sapsucker holes within the facet of a tree. So these two aluminum plates slide right into a steel body and the entire thing is secured and put along with bolts. And also you cling this factor up, you set one-inch slices of uncooked suet in it. You possibly can additionally put desserts in it in the event you needed. And also you tighten down the bolts and even raccoons can’t get to the suet.
Margaret: Proper.
Julie: So it’s a raccoon-proof suet feeder. They in a short time give up attempting. So that you don’t have to hold it on a baffle pole or something like that. And the woodpeckers find it irresistible. It’s actually a bird-specific feeder as a result of nothing else however one thing with a pointy pointy beak can entry the meals.
Margaret: Proper, precisely. It’s very well armored, that’s for certain within the footage.
Julie: Sure, sure.
Margaret: And I believe one of many issues I believe is that you just talked about your WarblerFall, and I’ll give the hyperlink to that too, as a result of that’s form of a bit course, type of like a how-to educating factor, plus all the knowledge it is advisable do it your self, to create this factor that you just name the WarblerFall. And it’s type of a product that you just’re promoting, not the factor, however the instruction, proper?
Julie: Right.
Margaret: And it’s nice. I imply to simply watch the birds. But it surely’s not a winter factor as a result of it’s a bit waterfall, as you name it, the WarblerFall, dish water backyard type of factor with stones and all types of goodies.
However within the winter, water is crucial, and but it’s tougher to offer. How do you present water within the winter the place you might be? I’ve two in-ground water gardens, and for the advantage of the overwintering amphibians within the water, I preserve holes within the ice clearly, as a result of in any other case they’d suffocate. So, the birds use that. However what do you do?
Julie: Effectively, what I do is I went out and purchased a heated pet dish at a Tractor Provide the feed retailer. It’s the type of factor that folks use for his or her canines in winter in the event that they preserve their canines exterior. And it’s not beautiful [laughter], however it holds a couple of gallon of water. I throw a brick in it, after which I high that with flat stones and the birds can solely drink across the edges. And the explanation I do that’s as a result of mourning doves like to make use of fowl baths as bogs, as everyone knows. And they’re going to sit on the rim with their tails pointing in and simply poop into the bowl all day lengthy. And it’s very annoying. I don’t know why they do it.
Margaret: To not point out unhealthy for the opposite birds. In order that’s not good.
Julie: Though doves as a rule are fairly clear so far as illness. So I do this. I mainly cowl all however little cracks across the edges with flat stones. After which in the event that they poop on the stones, no large deal as a result of they’re above the water floor. In order that’s what I do, and I plug that right into a GFCI-protected outlet. And that will get me by the winter. The birds recognize it a lot. They’re unable to wash. And that’s a superb factor, as a result of bathing in super-cold climate is a nasty thought whether or not they realize it or not. So, that’s how I do it. After which as quickly as spring comes, I get away my WarblerFall, which is my satisfaction and pleasure. My little invention.
Margaret: Proper, proper. But it surely’s ingenious, as a result of it’s deceptively easy. It’s lovely, however it’s so easy and you are able to do it your self; you’ll be able to assemble it your self. And also you’ve type of found out all of the engineering particulars in order that it actually works, versus improv-ing and have it not be actually suited to the birds.
Julie: Proper. And in the event you’re curious, WarblerFall.com has every little thing you want.
Margaret: O.Okay., good, good, good. Have you ever had any type of wild and loopy birds at your feeders or in your backyard both recently, this feeding season, or this previous gardening season? As a result of what I like in regards to the winter is the form of woodpecker, which is why I like suet. The woodpeckers are simply… they’re charismatic birds for me. They’re simply characters. They’re actual characters. So I get pleasure from seeing extra of them up shut. They’re at all times right here, however they’re-
Julie: Agreed.
Margaret: Yeah. I like that.
Julie: I like woodpeckers. That’s why I feed peanuts in a cylindrical tube feeder, or a mesh feeder mainly, that lets them take the peanuts by the mesh. I’ve to have my peanuts. I really drive an hour and a half to a retailer to get my uncooked peanut halves.
Margaret: Wow.
Julie: Yeah. It’s robust round right here. It’s arduous to get what you need. And naturally you don’t need to ship a 50-pound bag of peanuts.
Margaret: Proper.
Julie: So, I’ve had… the mixture of getting a working water fountain for the birds and feeders is a strong one, as a result of the feeder birds form of appeal to in, you recognize, different birds say “One thing’s occurring in that yard.” They hear the trickling water they usually’re drawn in a magnet. So I’ve had simply an array of… I imply, it was loopy. This fall earlier than I dismantled the WarblerFall in October… I really dismantled it in mid-November. I had a parade of ruby-crowned kinglets bathing on this factor, which I by no means knew they bathed.
Margaret: They’re so little.
Julie: I do know. And it was fabulous. After which I had golden-crowned kinglets bathing in it. So any fowl tub that will get in golden-crowned, ruby-crowned kinglets, is a strong one. Additionally, warblers of each stripe, Cape Could, Tennessee, bay-breasted, blackpoll, prairie, black-throated blue. So I suppose it’s unlocked a world for me of drawing in forest birds that may not usually come proper into my window.
Margaret: Usually you’d see them in your binoculars up on the forest edge or once you’re “fowl watching” type of a factor extra usually than proper there in entrance of you.
Julie: Proper.
Margaret: Yeah. On the deck or no matter.
Julie: That’s the ticket. Yeah, precisely. That’s the ticket. My sister put up a WarblerFall on her deck in Massachusetts, and inside days, had a male rose-breasted grosbeak come down and bathe whereas they had been sitting 3 ft away on their chairs. And she or he was like, “This factor works.” [Laughter.]
Margaret: Yeah. That’s fairly humorous. And I used to be simply going to say, one of many oddest issues for me, and it is a quite common fowl, a cardinal. He, we’re not on a first-name foundation, however we all know one another fairly properly by now, he’s starting his third consecutive season of defending his territory.
And once I say that: All 12 months spherical, not simply in breeding season, he circumnavigates my home. I’ve large home windows all the way in which round, and he goes from window to window, relying on the sunshine, the reflection at totally different instances of day, and bangs on the home windows, due to course he sees “the opposite male cardinal” who he desires to do away with. And he additionally makes use of the motive force’s facet rear view mirror. I used to be going to say reverse mirror, however that’s not what I meant. rear view mirror [laughter]. And it’s hilarious. And it’s like that is… I assume it’s the identical particular person as a result of the conduct is equivalent and he does all of it 12 months spherical, which is so odd. [Above, male cardinal; photo from Wikipedia by Rhododendrites.]
Julie: Sure. I’ve had that at my home as properly. I had a deranged cardinal. And actually, I consider these birds as birds with dangerous circuitry. They get an thought of their head and nothing will cease them. I’ve an expensive buddy, an artist buddy, named Larry Barth in western Pennsylvania, who had a feminine cardinal do this round his home for six consecutive years.
Margaret: Wow. O.Okay. Effectively, I’ll inform my man that the world report he’s taking pictures for is six years then, as a result of he’s received three extra years to go.
Julie: You have to be an early riser to not be too disturbed by it. I hate that.
Margaret: Yeah. No, it’s attention-grabbing. I simply attempt to go along with it and I simply attempt to go along with it. I imply, what are you going to do? Cowl each window downstairs with fabric? No matter. I simply let it go. Let it go. Let it go.
Julie: No, you’ll be able to’t.
Margaret: Yeah. Acquired to be a bit zen with a few of these issues [laughter]. So, some other sightings you need to inform us about within the final minute or so? Some other goodies?
Julie: Let me take into consideration this. Goodies. Effectively, I’ve deer consuming every little thing in my yard for the primary time in 30 years. So, I’m in a bit little bit of a gardener’s fetal place proper now [laughter].
Margaret: Proper, proper.
Julie: Yeah. I don’t know what it’s. Perhaps it’s all of the unique clearing I’ve achieved. I’ve taken down all of the honeysuckle and I believe they’re hanging again. So, it’s not a constructive factor, however I’m attempting to determine how I’m going to backyard subsequent season with that occurring. Yeah.
Margaret: I’m a fence believer and clearly it’s arduous to have a fence on an 80-acre property, clearly, however creating some type of a barrier or some type of a zone that’s your zone. It’s tough, however they’re not possible.
Julie: They’re not possible. Sure, they’re. I put out 28 pumpkins that I had grown, little white pumpkins, like large white pumpkins really. They ate each one in all them [laughter]. They had been in ornamental bundles round my yard on the masonry and every little thing, they usually simply stored disappearing. So I put out a recreation digital camera and certain sufficient, it was three deer simply consuming all of them.
Margaret: Yeah. Effectively, Julie, I’m glad at all times to talk to you and thanks for some fowl feeding recommendation. And I hope I’ll discuss to you quickly.
Julie: Thanks a lot, Margaret. This has been nice enjoyable.
enter to win a replica of ‘saving jemima’
I’LL BUY A COPY of “Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Exhausting-Luck Jay” by Julie Zickefoose, for one fortunate reader. All it’s important to do to enter is reply this query within the feedback field beneath:
What’s your bird-feeder scene proper now? Any winter water supply concerned? Inform us extra (and the place you might be).
No reply, or feeling shy? Simply say one thing like “rely me in” and I’ll, however a reply is even higher. I’ll choose a random winner after entries shut Tuesday Dec. 20, 2022 at midnight. Good luck to all.
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choose the podcast model of the present?
MY WEEKLY public-radio present, rated a “top-5 backyard podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper within the UK, started its thirteenth 12 months in March 2022. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station within the nation. Hear regionally within the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Jap, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Dec. 12, 2022 present utilizing the participant close to the highest of this transcript. You possibly can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
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