It’s official… I’ve spoiled my birds.  But that’s only because they are spoiling me with the peace and enjoyment I receive in watching them and all the funny things you see at the bird feeders.  I find myself repeatedly mesmerized while I sit and watch them.  Because it’s like all of His Creation, it speaks of Him and I’m learning day by day to listen, watch, and feel more.

 So how have I spoiled them?

 

 Well I suppose it was time that I purchased some new feeders and seed for them.  A couple of my older feeders had suffered terribly under the wrath of the masked bandit, and were just irreparable.  And my supply of seed had ran to bare minimum.  So, I packed up my three “bird lovers in training” children and we headed to the local Tractor Supply Company, which is the most reasonably priced bird supply place I’ve been able to find around here.

 As you can see from the photo above I picked up a very large bag of black-oil sunflower seed, smaller bags of Nyger Seed (Thistle), Safflower, and corn for the sweet squirrels and turkeys (more on them below).  Due to the advice I had recently received, I steered clear of the mixed bird seeds.

Also I picked up a new Nyger/Thistle feeder, a new suet/fruit basket which will hold more than my previous one, and a brand new to me feeder called a “No/No Bird Feeder“.  It’s completely metal, no plastic/no wood, this helps keep the feeder cleaner, helping with the prevention of bird diseases.  I also love this feeder because it appeals to both perching type birds and clinging type birds such as woodpeckers/nuthatches.

Ok, on to the bird feeder antics….

While the squirrels appreciate the corn that I throw on the ground for them, they have a special liking to the black oil sunflower and safflower seed.  While squirrels can be a bit destructive, they are no where near as much as the raccoons, so I tolerate them to an extent.  Plus they are just so cute, and watching their acrobatic performance is quite entertaining. 

 

 

The Wild Turkeys are very appreciative of the corn too, and thank goodness they are NOT trapeze artists like my squirrel acquaintances!

 

I’ve been working hard at getting photos of birds at the feeders but haven’t had much luck. It has to be a fairly sunny day to get a good photo through the glass windows, and we’ve not had too many sunny days this winter. Plus, every time I get near the windows the birds seem to disappear. I’m going to keep trying though and perhaps I’ll get a couple of good photos yet!

On the school front, we will be finishing up our snow studies this week, I’ll be posting more on that soon, and moving onto another topic, hmmm, maybe birds?  I will be removing my Winter Book Basket list soon and replacing it will a Bird Book Basket!  ALSO, this Friday I will begin teaching a Nuts About Nature class to the 4th graders at my homeschool co-op.  I have lots of FUN things planned for that and will be sharing all about those here on my blog each week.

As I log out off of blogworld tonight, I’d like to share with you one more snow photo I took today.  The snow was falling in large clusters.  We haven’t gotten a lot of snow this winter, but lots of dustings here and there on a regular basis, so I’ve had lots of opportunities for photos.

Tags: Birding

This entry was posted by Melissa on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Birding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.