I was a “birder” long before I was a gardener–or maybe sort of about the same time. If you click on the “Introduction” tab at the top of this blog, you’ll read that I’ve been gardening since I was 3, when I used to run ahead of my Dad’s push mower (many of you will be far too young to remember that mowers didn’t used to have engines–they were just a set of blades at the end of a long handles. You can still buy these “retro” mowers today). I would pick all the flowers–a type of viola called Johnny Jump Ups (again many folks consider them weeds, but I still love them) out of the lawn, “saving” them from the mower blades.
I also have fond memories of a small wooden bird feeder that my Dad hung in a sycamore tree in our backyard. We filled it with some sort of generic seed and backyards birds came. I don’t really recall having squirrel or chipmunk problems–maybe we did. And I know we didn’t have deer problems.
Even back then, I remember knowing the names of the birds–I was a little older by then, maybe first grade, so maybe 6 years old. And I still remember distinguishing between the house finches and the house sparrows (not terribly hard to do, except maybe for a first grader). My favorite was the bird that was then called the “slate colored” junco (it’s now called the “dark-eyed” junco).
Some things stay with you. Juncos (as I think of them because we really only have one kind here in the northeast) are still my favorite birds.
What’s a little more difficult is feeding them. When I was a kid, we didn’t even worry about deer, no less bears! Where I live now, it’s a wildlife bonanza! Just last weekend, a neighbor was showing me pictures of the neighborhood bobcat!
And while it’s just delightful to have all that wonderful wildlife in the neighborhood, I don’t want to attract it close to the house (or to create an “attractive nuisance” by feeding more than the birds.
So I have created habitat instead. Over the next few posts, I’ll talk about that, and show photos of what that looks like.
And, when I just can’t help myself (which happens less often now) I might toss a single handful of birdseed out on the ground, away from the house. That way, if something other than the birds come, it’s consumed quickly and they don’t get too used to it!
Gardendaze 