For color and life in the garden through winter's dreary days, nothing beats a good selection of backyard birds. Give me a couple of male cardinals, a few pushy bluejays and an evening grosbeak or two against a snowy woods, and I'm in primary color heaven. Add the cheeky scolding of the chickadees and the non-stop chatter of the finches, and suddenly, the landscape doesn't seem so flat and moribund.
Feeding birds through the winter keeps them right where you want them -- just the other side of a window near a comfortable indoor seat. Providing seed may help our feathered friends get by, but we are the biggest beneficiaries, since we can enjoy them up close as we rarely do when they're foraging in the wild.
It's time to get those feeders cleaned and hung as the official start of winter approaches. But nothing's easy anymore and providing bird seed is not as unconflicted a topic as you might think. One group that would like you to think before you buy are the bluebird fans. Populations of bluebirds have declined drastically and one of the reasons why is an imported pip-squeak of a bird, the English house sparrow.
Deliberately released in the 1850s -- as a nostalgic souvenir of the Old Country and in the mistaken belief they would help control crop pests -- the English sparrow multiplied explosively and is now the most abundant songbird in America. Actually a weaver finch, this "sparrow" has taken a terrible toll on bluebirds (and tree swallows) due to its aggressive appropriation of bluebird boxes and other nesting sites. It will evict the native birds' egg and young, or build its nest atop them and get right to work producing as many as four broods a year. The result is still more English sparrows and fewer native treasures like the beautiful bluebird. You don't want to encourage these thuggish Brits and you don't want them mobbing your feeders, excluding other species. The first line of defense is to buy quality seed.
The cheapest mixes available in supermarkets and home stores are loaded with filler grains, such as white, red and German millet, cracked corn and wheat. Native birds aren't that interested in this fare, but English sparrows happily chow down. Don't put out bread crumbs or other bakery products, either. These are favorite snack foods of English sparrows and starlings, another introduced European bird that can descend from the sky in numbers not seen since Alfred Hitchcock's dark film "The Birds."
by Valerie Sudol/The Star-Ledger
Read more: Filling the feeders for a winter's supping
Feeding birds through the winter keeps them right where you want them -- just the other side of a window near a comfortable indoor seat. Providing seed may help our feathered friends get by, but we are the biggest beneficiaries, since we can enjoy them up close as we rarely do when they're foraging in the wild.
It's time to get those feeders cleaned and hung as the official start of winter approaches. But nothing's easy anymore and providing bird seed is not as unconflicted a topic as you might think. One group that would like you to think before you buy are the bluebird fans. Populations of bluebirds have declined drastically and one of the reasons why is an imported pip-squeak of a bird, the English house sparrow.
Deliberately released in the 1850s -- as a nostalgic souvenir of the Old Country and in the mistaken belief they would help control crop pests -- the English sparrow multiplied explosively and is now the most abundant songbird in America. Actually a weaver finch, this "sparrow" has taken a terrible toll on bluebirds (and tree swallows) due to its aggressive appropriation of bluebird boxes and other nesting sites. It will evict the native birds' egg and young, or build its nest atop them and get right to work producing as many as four broods a year. The result is still more English sparrows and fewer native treasures like the beautiful bluebird. You don't want to encourage these thuggish Brits and you don't want them mobbing your feeders, excluding other species. The first line of defense is to buy quality seed.
The cheapest mixes available in supermarkets and home stores are loaded with filler grains, such as white, red and German millet, cracked corn and wheat. Native birds aren't that interested in this fare, but English sparrows happily chow down. Don't put out bread crumbs or other bakery products, either. These are favorite snack foods of English sparrows and starlings, another introduced European bird that can descend from the sky in numbers not seen since Alfred Hitchcock's dark film "The Birds."
by Valerie Sudol/The Star-Ledger
Read more: Filling the feeders for a winter's supping
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