feedthebirds

January Bird Feeding News

Crazy weather, huh!?  Weather is regular subject matter in our daily conversations.  Customers often remark, “The birds must be confused”.  Actually birds really don’t get confused about weather.  To them, it is what it is, so to speak.  They adjust and react and adapt. Today in Nashville it is going to be about 70 degrees and your bird feeders may be a little quiet.  It’s not that birds don’t need food on warm days; they still expend energy and need food. However, when it’s warm enough for insects to emerge birds must take advantage of a “protein” opportunity that doesn’t come around very often in January.  Birds that do not eat insects, like Goldfinches, will enjoy the lack of competition around the feeders and be there in possibly greater numbers. 

Speaking of Goldfinches, we continue to see great numbers of them at the feeders filled with the sunflower fine chips.  The sunflower chips continue to prove they are a better buy than nyjer seed when it comes to attracting finches.  It is cheaper, cleaner, and more appealing to the birds than nyjer.  It may be perceived that the finches are not feeding on it as much because the observable seed level doesn’t go down as fast as nyjer.  This can be explained simply by the fact there is considerably more edible seed per feeder than with nyjer so the seed does not disappear so dramatically.

 

Local Birding Events

Sandhill Cranes

This weekend is the Sandhill Crane Festival at the Hiwassee Refuge and Birchwood Community Center. For more information go to https://www.tn.gov/twra/article/sandhill-crane-festival

Another great place to view Sandhill’s and many other species of birds is Wheeler Wildlife Refuge along the Tennessee River near Decatur Alabama.  They are having their Festival of the Cranes also this weekend January 14-15.  For more information visit alabamabirdingtrails.com/sites/wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge-visitor-center/