News from the Back Yard

I have had backyard bird feeders off and on for years, but a year or so ago I got a little more serious about it. I got a couple of new feeders and hung them from the privet tree in the back yard. (Iain and I spent several hours cutting privet in the Morningside Nature Preserve yesterday morning with Trees Atlanta. I am no longer sure I want privet in my back yard.) But it was making me crazy, seeing the squirrels emptying the feeders. I put a feeder on the ground, by the back fence, with food that the squirrels and the chipmunks could get to easily, but I did not want them on my bird feeders.

So last fall I got a so-called "squirrel-proof" bird feeder from Droll Yankees. They have 4 different ones. The one they had a video for at the stores is equipped with a motor that is activated by the weight of a squirrel. If a squirrel gets on it, it will whirl around at high enough speed to hurl the squirrel off. It's funny to watch on the demonstration video, but I wasn't sure how durable it would be, in the long run, so I got the Yankee Dipper, which deters squirrels by its physical size (it is too wide and long for them to climb down it) and by hinged perches, that collapse even under the weight of a larger bird, much less a squirrel.

It worked really well for 6 months or so. The squirrels tried, but just couldn't get to the small openings at the bottom where the sunflower seeds are. Then, about a month ago, I found the feeder lying on ground, with seeds spilling out (and feasting squirrels). I assumed the wind had knocked it off and put it back up. Then the next day it was on the ground again. The squirrels had figured out, somehow, how to knock it off. I thought maybe they all jumped on it together. So I attached it more securely with a carabiner and it has not come off the tree (except when I removed it for refilling) since. I did see a squirrel on top of it, trying to push it off by pushing against a higher branch. For having brains the size of peanuts, they really are pretty devious.

So now they have learned a new technique. They sort of slide down the tube, and when they get to the bottom, hold on to it by wrapping themselves around the bottom and putting their feet in the openings where the seeds come out. I have seen them do this several times and will be on the lookout to catch it on video. When I do, it will be here.

The other news is better. The blueberry plants that I got from the plant sale sponsored by the Virginia Highlands group that was raising money for the new park actually have blueberries on them. The apple tree is doing well, I think, and a few of the bareroot strawberry plants that spent too long in a plastic bag before they got planted also appeared to have survived.

Years ago, both Caroline and Sarah built bird houses at a Girl Scout meeting. At home, they painted them gray, and they sat around for years until last fall (around the same time that I put up the bird feeders) I decided to put them up. There weren't great places to put them in the back yard - since the two dogwood trees died, we don't really have any real trees in our back yard - but I used wire to attach one to a small tree of unknown variety (probably something nasty that we shouldn't be encouraging) in the back yard, and the other to a Japanese maple that Tom had planted just beyond the back fence. During the fall and winter, I did occasionally see a bird exploring the one in the back yard, but of course it wasn't nesting season, and as I understand it, bird houses are really nesting boxes, that birds only use - and need - for eggs in the spring and baby birds in the summer. So I didn't expect to see any birds actually using it.

Well, this morning a pair of chickadees were moving in and out, with one or the other frequently visible in the round opening on the front. I haven't seen them this afternoon, but I hope they are napping or out hunting for furnishings. It would be great to have a chickadee family in the back yard.