We were able to lower seed prices again this spring! With the exception of nuts, all the seed prices came down. Some, like safflower, we lowered by $10.00 for a 20 lbs. bag. If you were priced out of feeding the birds a few years ago when seed prices rose sharply, then now is your time to get back into it. As always, the Wild Bird Company has the highest quality and freshest seed around. Don't feed your birds junk food!
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Walk in the Wild!
Sat. May 20
9am to 1:30pm
Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat
(on 75th, just south of Jay Rd.,
Gunbarrel, CO)
It's time for our International Migratory Bird Day celebration Walk in the Wild! This year will be another great event to learn about and celebrate birds, spend some time outdoors, and meet other folks interested in birds and wildlife. We'll have many bird walks that leave throughout the celebration, live birds of prey, art projects, coffee and treats, and lots more. A great event for all ages.
The Theme for this years' IMBD is 'Helping Birds along the Way', which explores different ways we can help birds make it from their wintering to their nesting grounds.
Fundraising:
We have several fundraising opportunities at Walk in the Wild. There will be a silent auction with many prizes of all kinds. You can buy a wildflower, shrub, or tree for habitat restoration. Or you can make a donation and get a bird to paint and add to the flock at Walk in the Wild. All funds go to improve bird habitat within Boulder County. Buy an IMBD Tee Shirt.
Dawn Chorus:
If you are looking for a unique bird watching event, then come on the Dawn Chorus Walk at 5:30am. The theme of this walk is listening to and appreciating bird song and sounds. Come hear what the birds sound like when they wake up! We will meet at the main Cottonwood Marsh Parking Lot at Walden Ponds. Don't miss this opportunity to wake up super early on a weekend.
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Pella Crossing Reopens
Boulder County Open Space Pella Crossing has reopened after 2013 flood damage has been repaired. Pella is located just south of Hygiene on 75th and it is a wonderful spot to view water and grassland birds.
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Wild Bird Company
Quick Links
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Xcel Energy
Bird Cams
Osprey Cam
from Earth Cam
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| Osprey ©Wendy Marie Stuart |
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Wild Bird Company Saturday Bird Walk
(Every Saturday morning for our Colorado Birders)
Bird Watchers (that's us)
From 7:30 am (promptly)
to 10:00 am (approximately)
Every Saturday year-round. No reservations required. Every last Saturday of the month we travel further afield than normal and return a little later. Bird Walk locations are determined on the morning of the walk. All ages and birding abilities are welcome!
Meet at Wild Bird Company
1641 - 28th St., Boulder, CO 80301
Call for more info: 303-442-1322
Weekly Bird Walk Slide Shows
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I know many of you really love receiving the Facebook postings, weekly bird list and slide show emails and/or the monthly newsletter emails. Please consider sharing or forwarding these emails and postings to your friends interested in nature. I would really appreciate getting these educational postings to a wider audience.
Thanks for the help.
--Steve
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Some of you may have seen our new sign and logo or noticed our new name. After many years as a franchise store, we have gone independent and changed our name to Wild Bird Company. We look forward to a continued relationship with our customers, increasing our brick-and-mortar and electronic inventories, greater educational resources, and so many other plans. Thank you all for making the last 27.5 years so memorable. I look forward to more good times. --Steve
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Attracting Northern Flickers
by Steve Frye
(see "Discouraging Northern Flickers" article below)
Northern flickers are medium-sized woodpeckers that can be found throughout North America and Mexico. In addition, the very similar gilded flicker is found in the desert southwest. Two distinct forms occur within its range, the yellow-shafted form is found in the east and the red-shafted
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Northern Flicker
©Neal Zaun
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form in the west. The color of these feather shafts in the wings and tails give flickers a flash of color when
they fly.The rest of these birds are highly patterned with spots, bars, and a necklace, but from afar you might only describe them as brown or gray. Flickers with their delightful antics, varied calls, songs, and flashes of color call attention when they visit your yard, but not everyone welcomes flickers. If you are trying to discourage flickers look for our post called 'Discouraging Flickers' below.
Bird Food and Feeders for
Attracting Flickers
There are many different types of food and feeders for attracting northern flickers, but probably the most common is with suet and a suet feeder. A basic suet feeder is simply a wire cage where you place suet. The flickers perch on the cage or nearby and peck bits of suet out. Some suet feeders provide a tail-prop at the bottom of the suet feeder so the flickers can better support themselves while feeding.
Suet is fat, usually from cattle, and it provides energy and protein for the flickers. The kind of suet you use is far more important than the style of suet feeder. You can use raw suet (which is a hard fat from around the kidneys, not just any fat) from the butcher, but you can only feed raw suet if it is cold outside. Ideally, the temperature outside would remain below freezing throughout the day. Otherwise, raw suet will soon spoil and become rancid. Most everyone uses commercially rendered suet cakes. These cakes will not become rancid at
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Northern Flicker ©Steve Frye
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room temperatures, but they can still spoil in very warm weather. There is a huge variety of commercial suet cakes on the market, but be advised, most of them are not very attractive to the birds. Suet cakes usually have seeds and other things mixed in with the rendered suet. Look for suet cakes which contain nuts like peanuts, insects, or fruits mixed in. These are the most attractive to the flickers. Suet is traditionally fed in the winter-time, but there is no reason not to feed it in any season. The flickers are at my suet feeders all year long!
Suet can melt in the summer, especially if it is in direct sunlight. Keep an eye on your suet to make sure it's not melting or spoiling. There are suet cakes on the market called suet dough which have a higher melting point and grainier texture.
Flickers love my suet log feeder, a piece of wood with holes drilled into it which accepts round suet plugs. Both the feeders and the suet plugs are commercially available.
If you want to make your own suet, see our recipe for Suet Scrumpy.
Northern flickers will readily eat hulled sunflower from any kind of feeder. They seem fond of caged squirrel-proof feeders where they cling to the outer cage and extract sunflowers from the inner tube. Flicker beaks are not designed to crack open sunflower shells, but they love sunflower meats.
Like other suet eating birds, flickers will eat shelled nuts including peanuts. These nuts can be presented on a platform feeder or a special peanut feeder
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Northern Flicker
©Kevin Rutherford
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which has wire mesh to hold the peanuts and allow flickers to peck away pieces of the nuts inside.
Most woodpeckers, including flickers, like fruit which makes up a good portion of their winter diet. Other than fruit in your landscape, flickers will come to fruit feeders for apples and pears, or raisins soaking in water.
Mealworms are also attractive to flickers. Use dried mealworms in a dish by themselves or mixed in with sunflower chips. Live mealworms can be presented in a glass dish with vertical sides about an inch high so the worms don't crawl out.
Bird Houses for Attracting Flickers
Woodpeckers, including flickers, want to make their own holes to nest and roost in. Flickers usually will not accept an empty nest box because that represents a hole that some other bird made. To trick the flickers into using a bird house you will need to stuff the house absolutely full of wood shavings (no room left inside). The flicker then digs out the nest box and it feels like it has made its own hole.
Bird houses for flickers have a 2 ½" diameter entrance hole which is placed about 14" above a 7x7" floor. The box should have a way to clean it out
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Northern Flicker ©Neal Zaun
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and ideally, it would also have a removable or hinged roof to make it easier to stuff with wood shavings. As with all bird houses, proper drainage and ventilation is required.
The flicker box should be placed at least 10' high at the edge of a woods or clearing or on your house with a clear flight path to the front of the box. The directional exposure is not critical, but you should avoid direct afternoon sun in the entrance hole and pointed away from prevailing winds. You may have to stuff the box with shavings every year or two in order to keep the flickers using the box.
Bird Baths and Water Features for Attracting Flickers
It goes without saying that all birds need to bathe and drink. Flickers are not known for using bird baths frequently. I have four bird baths in my yard and I have never taken great notice of them using the baths which they do, but not often. However, after I built a water feature designed for the birds, the flickers are there drinking all the time. I have no idea why that would make a difference, but it certainly has increased their attraction to water.
Gardening for Flickers
Flickers are ant eaters and they will often dig little holes in the yard and garden getting at them. Ants and ant eggs are a major food source in the summer and fruits are a large portion of their diet in the winter. Trees and bushes that offer fruit for the flickers include crabapple, serviceberry, hackberry, viburnum, cherry, chokecherry, elderberry, dogwood, and sumac. Russian olives are very
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Northern Flicker ©Steve Frye |
attractive to flickers, but because of their invasive nature we do not recommend planting them. Virginia creeper and honeysuckle vines also provide fruits for flickers.
If you have a tree or portion of a tree that is dead consider leaving it standing for the flickers to use for nesting. Of course, you need to consider the safety of leaving the snag in place for the flickers. Landscapes with a few dead trees actually have higher bird diversity compared to whose with only living trees.
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Discouraging Northern Flickers
by Steve Frye
(see Attracting Northern Flickers article above)
Are the flickers eating your house? Are they driving you crazy? Do you want to kill them?
Flickers can be a real headache, but there are ways to deal with them to keep your sanity and even enjoy them. There are two things that flickers do to irritate people. The first is drumming and the other is excavating. Each has its solution.
Drumming:
Flickers drum, a loud rapid fire tapping, to announce territory and to attract a mate. The louder you can drum, the better your
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Guard'N Scare Eye
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message gets out. That is why the flickers are drumming on your chimney cap or gutter, because it gets the word out. They are not trying to eat your house, just make noise. Drumming is not necessarily destructive so that may help your tolerance of it. After eggs are laid by a pair the drumming will cease. Still, if it is too early for you or its driving you nuts you can get flickers to drum elsewhere if you take away the sound qualities of what they are drumming on. Temporarily wrapping the gutter or chimney cap with a blanket or cloth will muffle the sound. A halo of chicken wire so the flickers cannot reach the sound surface may also work. Muffle the drumming spot and they will move to something else.
Excavating Nest or Roosting Cavities:
The real destructive activity of flickers is excavating nest cavities. When flickers chisel out a nesting or roosting cavity they make a 2 ½" diameter hole in a tree and then dig down to create a chamber below the hole which is about 12-15" deep. Unfortunately, your house is just a big dead tree to the flickers. Even better, it is a dead tree that has heart rot so it's hard on the outside and soft on the inside. They can tell this just as you can, by tapping on the house. Excavating nest holes in the house has nothing to do with food or neighbors feeding the birds including flickers. Here are some methods, both good and bad, to deal with flickers putting holes in your house.
Nest Box:
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This strategy makes good biological sense. If the flickers
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Peace Keeper Flicker Box
(not exactly a detractor, but we mention this as a means of dealing with Flicker problems.)
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are trying to create a place to nest, then give them that place and they will be satisfied. We have found this method to work better than the scar
ecrow methods. Attaching a flicker box to your house will not attract more than one pair of flickers. We would suggest placing the box very near or over a spot where they have been excavating. After the flickers have established in your box, they will drive other flickers away defending their territory. You can paint or stain the outside of the box to match your house. Get more information about flicker box basics on our
Attracting Northern Flickers page
. Also, if you would like to make your own nest box, look at our plans for the
Peace Keeper Flicker Box
.
Plastic Owl:
Flickers
A commonly suggested remedy to scare the flickers away from your house. It sounds like a great solution, but it does not work. The flickers (and any other birds) soon figure out the plastic owl is not real and ignore it. The only time I have heard of a plastic owl helping a flicker problem is when a customer told me the flickers pecked through the back of his owl and nested
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Holographic Scare Tape
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inside. Others have told me it worked, but
that was when they put out the plastic owl at the end of nesting season, no more need to make holes.
Scare Tape, Scare Eyes,
streame
rs, etc.:
These hanging items move in the wind and scare the birds off. The birds will get used to them, but they can work to a certain degree. If the flickers are not too determined to excavate on your house they will move on.
Attack Spider:
This is a battery operated sound detecting mechanical spider which drops down on a tether and crawls back up again when it hears a loud noise. These spiders are quite startling and do a good job of chasing and keeping aw
ay flickers. Every time the flickers
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Attack Spider
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start banging on the hou
se, the spider will drop down and scar
e them away. They need to be placed close to
wher
e the flickers are working on the house.
Shooting Them:
I am sure ma
ny flicker are killed because of house damage. As a solution, it is neither sustainable or legal. If you live in flicker habitat, you will always have flickers around. Removing a flicker pair from around your house will only open up available territory for other flickers who will move in quickly. It is a temporary solution, at best, a federal offense, and a poor moral choice
Painting Your House:
Many customers have told us painting or staining their house gives them a few years of protection from flicker damage. A new coat of paint or stain fills in cracks and tightens knots in the siding. This makes your house less appealing and more work for the flickers. They may just look elsewhere to find and easier place to make a hole. If you are considering residing your home because of flicker damage or any other reason, consider using cement board siding. The flickers won't bother with this siding and it will give your home added protection from wildfires. The two siding types that flickers are most attracted to are cedar and sprayed stucco finishes. If you only patch flicker holes and do nothing else you will encourage more holes to be started.
Sound Repellents:
There are expensive motion activated sound deterrents on the market. I do not have any experience with these devices, but they work by emitting a loud noise or predator call when they detect movement. I'm sure they could be effective in chasing your flickers away from your house, but at the price of more noise.
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Q: I'm really sad because I had to put my bird feeders away after the bears came out. Is there any way I can keep feeding the birds?
A:
Yes, I think you can still manage to feed the birds even though you are in bear country. I will give you several suggestions, but you must remember that bird food is attractive to bears and you will have to monitor your situation so that bears do not get habituated to always coming by your property for food. This could have dire consequences for you, your property, and/or the bear.
The high tech solution is to make a bear-proof pole. These are tall and sturdy metal poles which the bears cannot climb so your feeders are safe. These types of poles are placed away from nearby trees and require some way (hopefully other than a ladder) to retrieve your feeders for frequent filling. You can do this with a long pole to hook and unhook the feeders or by some pulley/winch system to lower and raise the feeders. Remember, the bears may still come around looking for the spillage so you need to reduce the amount of food which reaches the ground. We would suggest tube feeders with trays and feeding only sunflower chips as the cleanest possibility. This pole system would also be squirrel and raccoon-proof.
You can rig a cable pulley system high up in between to places similar to how you would bear-proof your gear when camping. The bears may be able to pull your system down if they are desperate, but this usually will work. Again, you need to have a clean feeder system.
Taking in feeders every evening has worked for some people, but we often hear about the times when people forget. The bears discover your lapse and then destroy your feeders. Bears will sometimes come visiting in the daytime. If they do this, your feeders will be vulnerable.
Finally, my favorite method, one I used when I lived in bear county. I would put away most of my feeders for the summer, but the one I left out was my platform feeder. This was a big platform on four short legs. Every morning I would put out a portion of bird food that the birds usually had cleaned up by noon. They would still peck around the rest of the day, but there really wasn't much left. I don't really know if the bears came by or not because the platform didn't need to be torn down to investigate; the seeds were not contained inside of anything so they didn't have to tear anything apart. I'm sure they came by every once in a while, but I never knew. Bears are smart and after visiting a few times and not getting anything to eat I'm sure they just crossed my feeder off their list. So this is the low tech solution. It was not squirrel-proof, but at least I was able to enjoy my beautiful mountain birds.
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Strike It Rich with Goldfinches!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15% Off All Nyjer Seed Bags!
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| Purple Finches and American Goldfinch
©Steve Frye
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[Note: When purchasing online, discount will be applied during checkout.]
Use Wild Bird Company quality Nyjer Seed and hit the mother lode!
Shop Online
, Call (303) 442-1322 and mention this Coupon or visit our Store to redeem.
Code:
WBCO0503
Not to be combined with other offers.
Expires 6/15/17.
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Don't forget to pro-actively attract your favorite birds. Stop by the Wild Bird Company today or
Sincerely,
Stephen Frye
1.844.442.1322 (toll free)
Wild Bird Company Headquarters
1641- 28th Street, Boulder, CO 80301
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