The City Gardener: Nature’s drama in your backyard

One of my earliest memories is being out in the garden while my mother was refilling the bird feeders. She told me to stretch my arm out full-length and stand very still, and she put a small handful of seed in my hand.

Almost immediately, to my utter astonishment, a chickadee landed on my mittened hand and started pecking at the food. To this very day, I can still feel that tiny, pulsing speck of life flitting about on my palm.

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I’m not sure if I would recommend you let your kids try that today — parenting is, generally, a more cautious occupation these days than it was back in the sixties — but a backyard bird feeder is a simple and perennially popular way to get close to nature, for bird lovers big and little. It’s also a very easy hobby to get into, as long as you follow a few ground rules.

The first, and probably most important, consideration is finding a safe place to put it. You want it to be at least ten feet away from low branches, porch or garage roofs, or fencetops, to keep your feathered guests safe from cats and other predators.

In the city, that often means a pole-top feeder, rather than the kind that hangs from tree branches or a hook on your back porch. It also should be located somewhere that birds can see it easily, but offer shelter or escape areas close by, like trees.

Different kinds of food attract different kinds of birds. All-purpose, black oil sunflower seeds are good for most backyard birds. Nyjer is great for finches, while suet attracts woodpeckers and nuthatches. There are lots of other kinds available, depending on the birds in your area and what you want to attract.

There are also many types of feeders, some of them designed to provide ever more ingenious ways to deter squirrels. But the basic setup, with flat or slanted glass sides and a peaked roof and mounted on a pole with a squirrel baffle, is a great place to start.

In fact, squirrel vs. bird feeder is a longstanding battle, and I don’t know of anything (scientifically engineered bird feeders notwithstanding) that will completely deter them. The best you can do is make it harder for them, and hope that the birds get most of the seed.

For years, I’ve used a simple baffle, placed on the pole about six to eight inches below the feeder itself, which at least puts up a fight. Positioning your feeder far enough away from trees and other access points is important too.

Whichever type of feeder — and squirrel defence technology — you choose, please be meticulous about keeping it clean. Bird flu and other diseases have skyrocketed in recent years, and many bird populations, especially songbirds, are increasingly under threat; don’t make it worse by letting them eat contaminated food.

At least once a month, you should take down the feeder, empty it and scrub it clean. Perform this operation sooner if seed gets wet, mouldy or stale.

Regularly sweep or rake the ground under the feeder to remove spilled seed. This not only minimizes the amount of spoiled seed the birds eat, but spilled seed attracts rats. In a garden or lawn, the seeds can also sprout, and you do enough weeding as it is.

Another important point to consider is whether you have large windows near the feeder. Put the feeder far enough away from the windows that birds won’t accidentally crash into them; alternatively, place the feeder close enough that the birds won’t be fooled.

If that’s not possible, consider installing screens or netting (which you can order online), or applying decals, like rows of dots, onto the window. You can get silhouettes of birds of prey at nature stores, but they might deter the birds from your feeder altogether, which kind of defeats the purpose!

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