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Re: Bird feeding

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Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:01:05 -0500

I had a male carolina wren at a pinecone feeder my daughter made this  
weekend. It had peanut butter and seed.
Tammy 
Carroll 

Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless

-----Original message-----
From: Gerald & Laura Tarbell <>
To: 
Sent: Mon, Jan 24, 2011 14:52:47 GMT+00:00
Subject: [MDOSPREY] Bird feeding

We stopped feeding birds several years ago. Several reasons. The neighbor up
thru the woods behind us was getting the "good stuff" (one day he brought us
a picture of one he didn't know- it was an Evening Grosbeak) while all we
seemed to get were starlings, house finches and sparrows and other assorted
junk that I finally decided was not worth the cost. I also didn't much care
for the mess and the fact that feeders are a place where birds can
congregate to give each other diseases. Not to mention the on-going
criticism that feeding birds isn't really good for them - they should learn
how to feed themselves in winter.

So this year a well-meaning relative (actually she's an in-law) gave us a
pretty little feeder and a couple bags of little black sunflower seeds for
Christmas. Rather than waste the seed I put it up one day and it has been
largely ignored ever since. The thing turns out to be a better decoration
than a feeder. There are small holes on each end of it where a bird can grab
one seed at a time but no tray where several birds could feed at once. If
any birds have landed on it they couldn't figure out how to feed from it.

The other day I was cleaning up in the laundry room and found a cake of suet
that somebody had apparently given us in some prior year. Knowing where
there was an old suet feeder around, I put the two together and managed to
get another shepherd's crook into the ground to hold it. I put it up next to
the other one thinking maybe together the two might attract some attention.
 So far the only bird that has found the feeders is a female Carolina Wren
that feeds solely off the suet. I find this slightly strange because I have
never thought of wrens as feeder birds and I didn't know that they like
suet. Usually it's something that attracts woodpeckers that demolish it and
leave chunks of it scattered on the ground.

Does anybody else have wrens coming to suet? Is this normal?

And a note to Jim Green and Ron Gutberlet - Goshawks and Rough legs were
long nemesis birds that we always seemed to just miss. We would arrive at
hawk watches just minutes after they went thru. Then we'd sit and wait for
hours and see only the usual Redtails and Sharpies and all that stuff.
However, both were only recently added to the wife's list. The Gos 2 years
ago and the Roughie just last month. You guys got 4 of these birds in one
day? Where were you when we were spending all that time searching the skies?
We are jealous to say the least. But nice work. That's quite an
accomplishment.

Jerry Tarbell
Watching feeders again in chilly (we're into double digits on the
thermometer finally) Carroll County