Ahh, the birds are nesting, they’re dashing back and forth across your yard in beautiful flashes of color and filling your yard with beautiful song. You can now sit back and enjoy your hard work, and theirs, for the rest of the summer, right? Not quite. Yes, the work you have to do is not as hard as it was in the early spring when you had to put up the houses, feeders and birdbaths, but your work is not over. Keeping your birds happy and healthy takes only a little bit of work over the summer but it’s as important as giving them some place to live.
Your responsibility to the birds you invited to join your family didn’t end when you put up a few birdhouses and set up feeders. For example, even though you have put out a birdbath you should check it every few days to make sure it is still clean. Over the spring and summer leaves may get into it from nearby trees. The combination of heat, sunlight and water can also turn a clean birdbath into an unwelcoming slimy eyesore. Checking your birdbaths every few days will ensure this doesn’t happen. If you see algae trying to get a foothold pour a cup of bleach into your birdbath and stand guard over it while it does its work. After 5 minutes pour out the water, scrub it gently and refill your birdbath with fresh clean water. It’ll be a welcome sight to your birds once more.
Spring and summer is a time when it’s easier for your birds to find food but they have to find a lot of it because they have hungry mouths to feed. Helping them out is very satisfying. If you have seed eaters in your yard all you really need to do is set up a couple of bird feeders and fill them with their favorite foods. If you have insect eaters you can purchase meal worms online and put them out for your birds to find. What works best for me are those cheap plastic bowls that come 6 to a pack in your grocery store. You can mount them on almost anything. Put a bunch of meal worms in it and position it near the birdhouse of your insect eaters and they’ll find it in no time.
Summer feeding is much different than winter feeding. If you put out birdseed in the summer you have to check it daily for spoilage. Frequent summer thundershowers, heat, humidity and sunlight all conspire to spoil your birdseed very quickly. Take a look at your feeders every couple of days. If you see the birds not using one of your feeders even though here’s seed in it the reason may be that the seed has spoiled. It may also be that humidity or moisture has gotten into your feeder and has caused the seed to clump like a rock. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say that I learned this lesson the hard way many years ago!
One last thing to keep in mind is the placement of your birdbath. This can be very critical and many bird lovers, even experienced ones, overlook this. Think of being a small bird and you’re sitting in your birdbath. While you can see off in the distance you cannot see well directly around the birdbath or nearby underneath it. The rim of the birdbath blocks your vision. If you’ve placed your birdbath in a flower garden or near a hedgerow thinking to make it more convenient for your birds you may also be making it more convenient for stalking cats to take them by surprise when they hide in the flowers or taller grass. Place your birdbath in as open an area as you can find with as much clear space around it as possible. Your birds will have a much greater chance of seeing a stalking cat approaching if you do.
The lazy hazy days of summer are coming and you deserve a break from all the work you did in the late winter and early spring to get set up for your feathered friends. However just a little more work throughout these days helps your friends greatly and they repay you with song and brilliant flashes of color. Isn’t that a great trade?
Wolf Mountain Birdhouses is looking for resellers. No start up costs, no sign up fees and we pay shipping. If you’re interested go to Wolf Mountain Birdhouses and look for the announcement concerning resellers.
