Winter Feeding

We're busy filling our feeders since the arrival of arctic temperatures. The other day, I observed a flock of red-winged blackbirds and some starlings in our trees. Sure enough, I had to fill our feeder twice during the day. I also made some homemade suet because the birds loved it so much last winter. However, today I realized that the birds weren't eating it. Finally, it occurred to me that the suet holder on our new bird feeder is bigger than the slice of suet I put in. I added another piece of suet and, sure enough, the birds attacked it right away.
Last weekend, we headed to the trail in search of exercise and fresh air. However, the trail was still covered with icy snow and walking was treacherous. We therefore didn't get very far before turning around. When we stopped and looked up we observed a cardinal, a red-bellied woodpecker, a mockingbird, a chickadee, and a tufted titmouse. I have to go back with my camera when the weather is more favorable.

Feeder Watch

Saturday's snow fall really brings the birds to our feeders. I counted 12 cardinals at one time. Also in abundance are house sparrows, mourning doves, and squirrels (not birds, but a steady presence around our feeders). A Carolina wren also visits the feeders quite often, and three crows search for the peanuts my husband throws outside every morning. As if to compensate for other birds, we seem to have fewer dark-eyed juncos than during other winters.
A new addition to our bird/squirrel offerings is a log that hangs from a bungee cord. It is pressed out of corn kernels, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. It is a huge hit with squirrels, titmice, chickadees, and wrens. Of course, we have our usual offerings of black-oil sunflower seeds, safflower, corn kernels, nyger, and suet. Something for everybody!

Failures of the gardening year

The biggest "failure" of our gardening year was our inability to find a two-tiered bird fountain. It was supposed to be the focal point of our second native garden. We looked locally and online and came up "empty." Everything we saw was either too small or the water would be too deep for birds to stand in. A bird bath should not be deeper than two inches and nothing passed the test. We finally bought a pretty bird bath and a water wiggler. It was not very popular, though, until we hung up our bird feeders. I guess water alone was not enough of a magnet for birds.
We also purchased an arbor and placed it at the entrance to our native garden. We had images of trumpet honeysuckle climbing up the sides and luring hummingbirds with their sweet smell. Alas, we could not find trumpet honeysuckle anywhere. We hope to have better luck next year.
We also expanded our vegetable area and planted tomatoes and paprika. That proved to be too much temptation for our resident groundhog (actually, he resides under our neighbor's barn, but finds more food in our backyard). Our plan for next year is therefore to put up a fence to protect tender plants from wildlife since we spend a small fortune on repellants.
Fences are on our list for next year, but overall we're happy with the way our backyard has turned out this year. Considering that we haven't had much rain this summer and fall we're lucky that we only had to water our new serviceberry and the annuals, of course.