Seeds or suet for dinner?

I was hardly in my new home when I logged into Amazon and looked for various kinds of feeders to adorn the garden with.  Birds needed to be enticed but not the squirrels. For those of you that follow me on Facebook, you will know the fun I have been having with my window bird feeder and a certain determined individual with a fluffy tail. I placed my bird feeders on my lovely expansive front lawn to give me the best view from the lounge (called a living room here by the way). I set up my scope and camera with a good view of the feeders and have really been entertained over the past few months with all their antics.  This blog entry is a little info about my feathered friends and what they get up to around the feeders.


One of the first birds that I observed feeding completely differently to birds I am used to was the White-breasted Nuthatch. They have long thin almost-upturned bills and looking at them I would imagine them being complete insectivores. When you watch them "working" the tree trunk, they start from the top and shuffle their way down so are always walking with their tails at the top and heads down while they probe under bark looking for insects hidden away. Quite comical as they also like to hang upside down like woodpeckers on branches and my suet feeder as it turns out, as they forage.
Much to my surprise, they were one of the first birds at the seed feeder. Seeds? After a couple of days the tree next to the window cleared of snow and a nuthatch perched there with something in his beak. He had taken a sunflower seed from the feeder, just one seed. He then flipped himself upside down and shoved the seed under a piece of bark. With his body still tail side up, he then started hammering against the shell to open it and eat the delicious morsel inside. Leaving the empty shell under the bark, he set off for another seed and repeated the process several times, each time under a different piece of bark. Not only did the seed eating surprise me, but the art of tucking it quickly under some bark to hold it still, was quite ingenious. In all this time, I have never seen him take anything other than sunflower seeds.
In similar behaviour ie. taking just one seed and flying off, the Tufted Titmouse likes to hold it between his toes and hammer away at the shell to get inside. I got rather a fright when in the kitchen one day, I heard this intense hammering against the window. I looked up and the titmouse was using the edge of the bird feeder to hammer out his breakfast.  All three of my woodpeckers take just one sunflower seed at a time and wedge it into a fork in the tree, rather than under the bark, also before they hammer it open and grab the bounty within. Watching a woodpecker that can't perch so folds himself double, getting seeds out of the feeder is quite comical but I'll save that for another day.

Apart from the hummingbirds, the catbirds and the orioles all other birds are pretty much after the seed offerings I put out. My seed mixture is made up of striped and black oil sunflower seeds, whole and shelled peanuts, whole and crushed corn, millet, flax, canary seed and safflower.  I have all of the seeds mixed up in these huge bins in the garage to make it easy for me but after observing the birds a bit more, I might be changing my feeding habits and putting certain seeds alone in feeders.

The Common Grackle are by far the messiest eaters especially when I put fresh seed out.  They are specifically interested in the shelled peanuts and will use their beaks to push everything out of the way until they get what they're after and briefly fly off.  This works out great for the doves who only stick to the ground and enjoy a shower of seeds at regular intervals but at the same time, they are making the squirrels and chipmunks fat. I have taken to sorting out and putting as few peanuts as possible into that feeder they
have easy access to. Due to the sheer number of grackles I have here (like pigeons back home), I have changed the weight setting on my squirrel-proof feeder. There's a perch/bar in front of the feeding holes that stays open or closes up, based on weight. With the grackles being the heaviest birds, I put it on the most sensitive setting and if they are lucky, the gap stays open just wide enough for them to get a few small seeds out at a time. It works best of course when more than one want to feeder together and their combined weight closes the gap completely.

Flapping wings to open gap

However, being the most incredible creatures ever, I watched a grackle regularly flapping his wings while at the feeder this morning. I eventually caught on that he had worked out that his weight was closing the gap to the seeds. He would flap his wings slightly to ease his weight off the bar and then launch himself forward to grab as many seeds as he could before the gap closed up again.

Grab as much as you can

He did this for about 15 minutes and was aggressive to any other bird that came near the bar, even the tiny sparrow. The other grackles waited their turns but none of them was as smart.  Sheer genius on his part and I gave him some silent applause. Hat off to him!

I have a pair of Northern Cardinals that are attached to each other. They spend most of the day flying around the garden, flashing their bright red feathers in the sun and then coming down to the feeder when it gets quiet. Funny thing though is that they never come down together. One of the pair will always stay in the tree or perch on a bush, while the other feeds. I have observed them for a few months now and the pattern doesn't change. When one of them is in possible danger or out in the open, the other stands guard. Not too long and they swap places to give the other a chance to feed. Initially I thought they may have been on a nest nearby but I'm thinking one plays a lookout role to keep each other safe.

Suet has become a daily necessity at the feeder, especially for those birds with chicks on a nest. The moms and dads are easy to spot as after a few greedy gulps of suet, they pick up as much as they can and fly off.  Here suet isn't just suet though. You buy suet with or without - grain, fruit, seeds and meal-worms.  The brand with the meal-worms has proven to be the most popular in my garden, especially the woodpeckers. Problem is that the woodpeckers don't get much of a chance to grab & go and putting out two suet cakes a day isn't economical for my pocket. I have ordered a new suet feeder that only has access from the bottom so the woodpeckers will have their own feeder.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

There seems to be a major requirement for almost all the birds in my garden for this protein-rich snack but I'm still learning about the right quantities of everything.  I think I need to get back to making my rice balls but turning them into rice cakes/slabs for the suet cages as putting them out in open feeders I brought from home, doesn't work. I tried large suet balls about the size of a tennis ball and couldn't understand why they kept disappearing after an hour or two. One afternoon I caught a crow flying off with this huge ball in his mouth. How he managed to pick it up was beyond me but he clearly had a need I couldn't understand.

The only bird I have never had near any of my feeders, is the American Robin. Being a thrush in disguise, he sticks to the shadows around the edge and every now and again, I hear him flipping over leaves looking for bugs to eat. I am lucky to have a large enough garden so have about 4 pairs of robins breeding around the house.  This morning I saw my first youngster - nicely speckled in front and a bit bolder than the parents as he came quite close to the feeder while I was filling it. He could fly very well and inspected the dove under the bird feeder before flying off. Their nests are usually well hidden and with the amount of greenery I have here, the nests could be anywhere.

Blue Jays have been another surprise for me at the seed feeder as I would have related them to shrikes based on look and aggression but they just love seeds, especially the corn (mealies). They are not loved by other birds (they just love munching nestlings!) and the dove will chase them away almost every time whereas the other birds will tolerate them. When the males were out courting a few weeks ago, they would land on the feeder pole and call out as loud as they could - they have a screeching kind of sound that wakes the neighbours.They must have babies now as they are flying off with mouthfuls of suet as soon as I can put it out.


I am up to 35 different species of birds that have come into or flown over my garden here in Armonk. I can only imagine how many others I have missed but remain optimistic that we shall remain friends. They have to be nice to the hand that feeds them after all.