Bird Gadget Consumerism
As a volunteer webmaster for one of the busiest nature oriented websites in this part of the world, I get a lot of email. In fact, I spend much of every morning answering questions sent to me from around the globe.
What most people want to know about are birds. How to attract them. How to keep them around.
Many of these email messages go something like this –
“I live in [city, state]. I am trying to attract [bird species] but am not having any luck. I’ve put out this kind of bird food and that kind of bird feeder and I keep my bird bath full of clean water but all I get are sparrows and starlings. Can you help me?”
When I first started answering email like this, I usually referred people to Google with a short list of relevant search terms. In recent months, however, I’ve stopped doing this.
Why have I stopped? Because while Google is a fine search engine that can help you find many answers to many questions, Google and Googlers alike are victims of the commercial nature of the Internet.
When it comes to birds, for example, the Internet is dominated by what I call Bird Gadget Consumerism. In other words, start looking for ways to attract certain species of birds and you are most likely to find a website that offers a solution to your problem in the form of a manufactured product.
Buy this feeder or this food or this house or this bath or this fountain, promises the website, and you are sure to attract whatever species it is that you are trying to attract.
Nice. But not necessarily true.
I live five blocks away from one of the most interesting and diverse urban natural areas in North America. Baltimore Orioles nest there every year. If I am up early enough — before the roar of rush hour traffic overwhelms the soundscape — I can even stand on my patio and listen to their magical dawn chorus.
Nevertheless, I can spend my entire summer stocking oriole feeders with oriole nectar or orange halves or grape jelly, but I am never going to see a Baltimore Oriole at an oriole feeder in my backyard.
The same is true for hummingbirds. While I am fortunate enough to live next to the Weaselhead Natural Area where three different species of hummingbirds are found every year, there is a stretch of about 6 weeks every summer when I could put up every type of hummingbird gadget imaginable and still not see a single hummingbird in my yard.
Birds, it seems, have their own ideas. They have their own calendars and their own agendas which are quite different from ours.
When orioles come to Weaselhead, for example, they do so to nest and raise a family. Therefore when it comes to menu planning, the only thing on their mind is a diet high in readily available insect protein. Nectar, orange slices and grape jelly do not enter their minds during the 14 weeks they are in my neck of the woods.
The same is true for hummingbirds. During the short time they are busy with the nesting season, the females spend their time building their nests, hatching their eggs and raising their young. The males, meanwhile, spend all of their energy over these five or six weeks defending their little patch of wolf willows and Caragana bushes from interlopers.
The diet for both genders during this period consists mainly of insects and natural nectar found in the immediate proximity. The last thing they are going to think about doing during this intense and important part of the hummingbird calendar year is to wander several blocks away from their territories or nests to visit a hummingbird gadget in Brent Johner’s backyard.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that bird gadgets are wrong or somehow inherently evil. I am not. My yard is full of bird gadgets. I have feeders and houses and birdbaths. I even have a little hose that attaches to my birdbath and rains mist down on the surface.
I bought it from a website that promised me that it would attract hummingbirds. It didn’t, of course, but it keeps algae from forming in the bird bath and on hot days it cools me off when I walk by it, so I still use it in spite of the fact that I have yet to see a hummingbird playing with this expensive little toy.
Bird gadgets do have a place and a purpose. However, it is a human place and a human purpose that has little to do with birds.
I don’t think, for example, that my many feeders do all that much in terms of attracting birds to my yard. And here is a little story that demonstrates what I mean.
I store my black oil sunflower seed in a waterproof three gallon pail out of sight under my apple tree during winter months. Three years ago, while filling the bird feeder that hangs in that same apple tree, I accidentally left the lid off of the pail. A few days later our strong March winds (I suspect) blew the pail over.
I didn’t discover this until I looked out my kitchen window one melting spring day in late March to see more than a hundred Common Redpolls and various other birds swarming my backyard.
Upon investigation I found the upturned pail half buried in wet snow. What a mess! Two kilograms of soggy black oil sunflower seed scattered everywhere. I didn’t like it but the birds clearly loved it.
Over the next three weeks, my backyard was swarming with flocks of winter finches gobbling up the seeds scattered in the melting snow. During that entire period, however, I did not see a single bird using the feeder hanging just a few feet over their heads in the apple tree.
The lesson I took from this is that it is the food, not the feeder — not the gadget — that brings birds to my yard.
So the following winter I decided to cut out the gadgets altogether and get right to the source. Building on the accidental example of the previous spring, I went out one late October day and scattered a kilogram of black oil sunflower seed on the ground under my apple tree.
As winter passed and as record numbers of birds appeared in my yard day after day, I stood at my kitchen window gloating — congratulating myself for being so clever. No gadgets, no costs and hundreds of birds every week. I had cut out the middleman. I had outsmarted the Bird Gadget Industry.
Such anyway were the proud fantasies swimming around my swollen head right up to the moment when I went to spring clean my garage. Shredded bits of a bicycle seat, shredded bits of inline skate liners, a beautiful new fabric patio umbrella with three giant holes in it and mouse droppings everywhere.
As the snows receded from my yard over the next few weeks exposing the damaged grass where busy voles had made their narrow winter highway tunnels, the proud fantasies swimming through my head all winter long were suddenly flushed down the toilet of reality.
Yes. I had attracted birds by the hundreds with my smarter-than-thou strategy of scattering seed directly on the ground. But I had also attracted scores of mice.
So after donning a mask and gloves, after spraying several gallons of disinfectant throughout my garage, after several hours of careful use of the shopvac and many more hours washing and rewashing the yard until I was absolutely certain that it was safe enough for the kids to go out and play under the apple tree again, I spent several weeks of wondering if every tickle in my throat was the first sign of Hantavirus infection.
The whole experience convinced me that bird gadgets do have a purpose. A human purpose. Bird feeders, for example, offer one way to serve food to birds without also serving it to mice. A well designed feeder even makes it possible to feed birds without also feeding squirrels. But the feeders themselves will not attract the birds.
What birds are attracted to is a combination of food and habitat. And it is entirely possible to create both of these without falling into the bottomless pit of Bird Gadget Consumerism.
Let’s start with food.
Eight years ago my wife-to-be and I were trying to decide where we wanted to go on our honeymoon. We wanted to go somewhere with an ocean beach where people were speaking a different language. The problem was that I don’t fly, she doesn’t sail and most people in the United States speak English.
So, being somewhat limited in terms of possibilities we settled on the Québec’s Gaspé Peninsula. It is on the Atlantic Ocean, the local language is French and, most importantly, it is accessible by automobile.
So like migrating birds we were off to cross the continent in search of a place to court, mate and perhaps even start a family. Granted, we were moving west to east rather than north to south, but the general idea was still the same.
The next thing we knew we were standing in the middle of a place we had never been, reading signs in a language we did not understand trying to figure out where we were going to find something to eat.
There are the golden arches, said my wife; we know we can get cheeseburgers there. There is a low brick hut with a big red roof; probably pizza in there. And that place, the PFK with the cartoon picture of the southern colonel in the window, there’s chicken in there for sure.
So in spite of the fact that we were more than a thousand miles from the nearest landmark we would recognize, we were still able to figure out where to find food. In fact, just from looking at the signs we were able to get a pretty good idea of the kinds of food we would find inside.
Perching birds, I imagine, see the world in much the same way. They are born in trees. They eat in trees. They live their lives in trees. So I imagine that as they fly across the landscape surveying the trees from overhead, they have a pretty good idea of what their options are at any given moment.
Hmmm. Let’s see. Berries there. Nectar there and — oh — beetles there. I love beetles. Honey, let’s stop and get some beetles. I’ve been craving beetles all week.
A traditional May Day tree — a favourite for many birds — stands forty feet tall and forty feet wide at maturity. The cedar sunflower seed feeder in your yard is at best about one foot square. In other words, you would have to lay out and stack up 64,000 cedar bird feeders to achieve the same visual and spatial effect from the air as a single mature May Day tree.
But let’s face it, even if you spent the $2.5 million dollars you would have to spend in order to stack up 64,000 cedar bird feeders, the birds would probably look right past this architectural monstrosity at the next tree on the horizon because they are birds — conditioned by evolution to look for food in trees.
Which brings me to my first point about bird food. If you want to attract and retain birds on your property, think first about your trees.
All trees offer food and shelter just like all restaurants offer a menu and a place to get out of the rain. However just as not all restaurants are equally attractive to all humans, not all trees are equally attractive to birds.
Each bird species has its favourite tree or family of trees. The key to attracting and retaining the species of bird you are seeking, therefore, lies first in knowing what kinds of trees those birds like.
Generally speaking, berry trees are a good bet. Most perching bird species eat berries for at least part of the year. Moreover, berry trees typically support a larger population of insects than non-berry trees, so warblers and other insectivores will seek out these trees both before and after the berries are ripe.
But, you say, I don’t have any berry trees on my property. Am I supposed to go out and buy some? Isn’t this just Bird Gadget Consumerism in another form?
It could be. If you allow it to be. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
When developers build new urban subdivisions, they don’t normally take the local ecosystem into account. Rarely will developers consciously decide to plant varieties of trees that are attractive to birds or other wildlife. Rather, they will typically choose to plant a mix of inexpensive fast growing deciduous trees and slower growing conifer trees.
In most cases, therefore, you will have to do some property redevelopment if you want to increase your chances of attracting and keeping particular bird species.
Yesterday, for example, while walking my daughter home from school, we passed by our neighbourhood community centre while they were in the middle of their spring tree pruning.
Seizing the moment, I picked up several discarded tree branches about three feet in length from a few varieties that I want to grow on my property . Upon arriving home, I placed these branches in a bucket of water and packed the remaining space with small pieces of willow branches.
Over the next several weeks a natural growth hormone will seep from the willow branches and cause roots to appear on most of the other tree branches. Voila. I will have a number of new yard-long saplings for my property with a few left over to give away to my friends and neighbours.
This is not a new thing for me. Over the past few years I have been gradually acquiring small trees with a view to turning my lawn-covered side lot into a small woodlot filled with trees to attract particular bird species that I like to have around.
Many of these trees have come from friends and neighbours who have found volunteers growing in their gardens. Others have come either from seeds or from shoots taken from trees on my own property.
But doesn’t this take a lot of time?
Sure it does. Growing new trees requires some patience, but not as much as you might imagine.
Even in a city like Calgary, with one of North America’s shortest growing seasons for a major city, a tree that is properly planted, watered and fertilized can grow two feet up and two feet out in a single year. Within 5 years of planting, therefore, the branches I picked up yesterday will turn into 13 foot trees well on their way to maturity. By the time my daughters graduate from high school, meanwhile, I will have a small forest of trees all topping 20 feet.
Berry bushes, on the other hand, tend to grow even faster, which is why I have also been asking my friends and neighbours to keep an eye and an ear out for particular kinds of berry bushes that I want to see growing in my small urban woodlot.
Which brings me to the second thing that attracts birds — habitat.
Trees alone will not attract the greatest variety of birds to your yard. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 90 per cent of all perching birds feed and nest within 3 feet of the ground. This is why you see so many fewer birds in manicured city parks than in wild natural areas like Calgary’s famous Weaselhead.
Densely planted berry bushes can form an excellent under story for an urban woodlot. Planted as borders or hedges around your property, they can also vastly increase the amount of food and habitat available to the birds you are seeking to attract. And if you are careful to choose varieties with attractive blooms, they can also add tremendous curbside appeal to your property.
And once again, there is no need to fall into the trap of Bird Gadget Consumerism. Talk to your friends and neighbours and let them know that you are willing to take any unwanted volunteers they might find growing on their properties. Talk to your local horticultural society. Get online and start talking to your local gardening groups; these people tend to give away tons of volunteers every year.
It really doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to come up with exactly the right combination of trees and bushes you need to redevelop your lot and make it more attractive to the birds you want to see. It does require some patience and some persistence though.
But the reward at the end of the day is worth it. Rather than a yard full of bird gadgets, you will have a yard full of self-filling bird feeders that double as a habitat. In other words, you will have a yard full of birds and several places to put up as many bird gadgets as you may desire — or not.
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Brent Johner has been writing about urban wildlife since 1998. Many of the articles here first appeared in the Calgary Herald, Calgary Gardening magazine or on Talk About Wildlife. Brent has also done dozens of radio, television, newspaper and magazine interviews on the subject of urban wildlife.
Thanks, for providing to our a useful information. One think is good a beautiful new fabric umbrellas with three giant holes in it and mouse droppings everywhere…!I love the birds so much…….