What best to feed them?
We like to be good stewards to our songbirds. That involves some
worry!
What's to worry about? If it's not a hungry looking robin, it's
a mysterious absence of birds at normally busy feeders or how to
provide for your regulars while you're away on a winter vacation.
Or neighborhood cats, or...
In our Forum recently, J.K. asked
how to provide for a robin. That's shaping up to a lively
discussion. (We suggested blueberries or mealworms but know that a robin would prefer
serviceberries. Hmm. If only one could buy frozen
serviceberries. Maybe we'll freeze some ourselves this year, and
present them to J.K. for Christmas next!).
Here at our place, we think we know why our feeders, and our
whole yard, have been silent the last few days. (Boy do we notice
the silence and lack of movement!) Yup, that hawk's been posting
itself regularly over our space and every bird around knows it's
there.
Oh, we feel bad for "our birds." Yet we love the hawk too.
Steven says, "Those feeding stations we have out there are, after
all, bird feeders." We think the hawk will give up and
move to another of its haunts. When it does, word of its move to
will spread as quickly among our local songbirds as did the alarm
when it began taking up station here.
When Steven stepped outdoors to snap its photo, "our" sharp
shinned hawk piped once and launched itself. But it circled the
area just once or twice then settled right back down, among the
branches of an apple, in the air space above our seed-filled bird
feeders.
