From Steve Elsberry
Birdwatching: Relaxing in the Theater of Nature
Watching birds at a
bird feeder is the best way to spend a relaxing time when you just need to get away from all the stress of everyday life. And it’s something that doesn’t require any preparation or planning or having to buy a bunch of equipment to enjoy it. Like golf, you have to have a heavy bag of clubs and then hire some one to carry it around the course for you or if you go fishing then there is boats , motors and fishing tackle and the travel to where the fish are. Well bird watching, you just put some bird feed out and sit back and watch the show. Now a bird feeder can be almost anything that will hold the variety of seeds that birds like and they can be purchased at most grocery stores , agricultural outlets or convenient stores. The feeder itself can be anything from a used aluminum pie plate to a custom built model of almost anything. The birds don’t care, if the feed is there they are happy.
Bird Feeding Adventures: From Sparrows to Swoopers
We lived on a farm and it was ideal for birds. Out first feeder came from a craft fair and it was made to look like a log cabin. We hung it in a pecan tree near the back porch and in no time the birds found it. We then bought a bird book to try to identify the various species the was enjoying their free meal. The most frequent visitors were the sparrows. The word must have spread all around the countryside for it seemed like they came from everywhere. After a while you got to noticing some that seemed like regulars by the way they acted. There was one in particular that acted like a bully and wanted the whole feeder for himself. But sparrows weren’t the only birds to pay us a visit. There was mocking birds, blue jays, lots of red birds and one wood pecker that we called ,”The Swooper” , be cause he would swoop down from the top of the tree to get him one sunflower seed and fly back to the top of the tree. In swooping down he would scatter all the little birds that happened to be feeding at the time.
Wildlife Delights: Birds, Squirrels, and Beyond
Of course with feed out there for the taking you are going to attract more that just birds. It didn’t take long for the squirrels to learn about the free lunch program. Squirrels are persistent and adaptive. It’s almost impossible to prevent them from getting in a bird feeder. I’ve seen one hand by one back leg holding on to a tree branch with his head in the feeder eating his fill. We spent many hours watching the birds. They enjoyed the feed and we enjoyed the show they put on for us. When we left the farm and moved to Florida and I have since moved in with my daughter, Joanie, and her husband, Gerry. We live in the Florida Panhandle not for from the Alabama state line and in the middle of a forest. This makes for an ideal location for birds plus other kinds of wildlife. They have several bird feeders and some humming birds feeders as well and plenty of birds , Gerry puts out corn for the deer along with scattering some bird seed on the ground too. This makes the squirrels happy since they don’t have to climb the trees to get the bird feed. I got the idea of putting up a game camera to get pictures of the different critters that came up. It worked well on the animals but the birds weren’t big enough to trigger the motion sensor and I wasn’t satisfied with that plus the fact that it ate batteries like squirrels going through the bird feed. Disappointed, I scraped that idea and relented to just watching.
Capturing Wildlife Moments: Birdfy Bird Feeder
Christmas came and to my surprise, my grandchildren gave me a bird feeder. Not just any old bird feeder but the Cadilac of all bird feeders. Made by Birdfy it has a camera built in, will send pictures to my phone, has a slot for a microchip to store all the images and best of all a solar panel to keep the batteries charged. It couldn’t get any better than this. Now I can watch my birds wherever I go. It even names all the different birds. I was really amazed of how well it worked. I hope that whoever reads this story will pick up on this because it’s not everyday you find a product that really does what it is supposed to do with no hassle.
