Bird Rescue Lima OH

Tips for Better Bird Feeding

Bird feeding provides enjoyment to millions of North Americans each year. When proper feeding methods are followed, both humans and birds derive benefits from feeders. However, recent research on the impact of bird feeding has shown that feeders can sometimes be a source of disease for the birds visiting them. There is good news, too: With minimal effort, any feeder operator in North America can provide a safe, healthy feeding station for birds.

Tips for a Healthy Feeding Station

• Give your seed feeders (especially thistle and tube feeders) a shake before you refill them, to dislodge any compacted seed. Dump out any wet clumps of old seed.
• Clean all hulls off platform feeders and out of seed trays daily.
• Keep some old spatulas and brushes handy by the feeding station for cleaning purposes.
• Disinfect feeders by scrubbing with a weak bleach solution (1/4 cup of bleach to 2 gallons of warm water) every few weeks, more often in summer or rainy periods. Rinse and allow feeders to dry before refilling.
• Wash your hands thoroughly after filling or cleaning your feeders.
• Move your feeding station when the ground beneath it becomes covered with seed hulls and droppings. Rake the old site to remove hulls and to give the grass a chance to recover.
• Store your seed in a clean, dry, air-tight container, such as a metal or plastic garbage can.
• Don't allow large amounts of seed to become wet, as on platform feeders. Instead, when it's wet outside, feed primarily from covered feeders that will keep seed dry or put out only a handful of seed at a time on platforms.
• Don't put hulled sunflower hearts (or bits) out where wet weather can cause them to spoil. Offer them in a tube or hopper feeder.
• Don't put out any more seed than can be eaten by the birds by nightfall, especially where raccoons, opossums, bears, deer, or rodents are a problem.
• If you see a sick or dead bird at your feeders, halt your feeding for a few weeks to allow the healthy birds to disperse. This lessens the possibility of disease transmission. Remove and discard in the trash any dead birds. Report the sick birds to your local wildlife officials, many of whom monitor wildlife health.
• If you provide suet, reduce the amount you offer in hot weather. Heat can make suet rancid and unhealthy for birds. Runny suet can also stick to birds' feathers, making them hard to keep clean and useful. Use rendered suet or heat-resilient suet blocks that are available commercially.
• Reduce window-kills of birds by placing feeders a safe distance away. If birds regularly strike a particular window place a screen, crop netting, or a series of branches over or in front of the outside glass panel to break up the reflection.
• Though birds may not be entirely dependent on your feeder, it's best not to leave them totally without food if you plan to be away from home in midwinter. Purchase an oversized feeder with a large seed capacity or ask a willing neighbo...

Top 10 Things You Can Do to Prevent Window Strikes

Thump! It's that sickening sound that can only mean another bird has flown into one of your windows. Birds cannot see glass, especially if it is reflecting the nearby habitat or sky. These reflections do not register as such to a bird. This is why millions of birds die or are injured each year in collisions with glass windows in homes and office buildings.

Here are 10 different suggestions for making your windows less deadly for birds.

10. Move your feeders. Many window-killed birds are familiar feeder birds that use our backyards every day. There are two parts to this suggestion. Move the feeders farther away from your windows or move them closer to your windows. The idea here is that you'll disrupt the birds' usual flight path to and from the feeders. Moving the feeders closer to the windows can sometimes help because birds startled off the feeders by a hawk don't build up enough speed to hurt themselves, and being closer to the window, the birds might be able to see that it is not an effective escape route. Remember that moving the feeders will do nothing to prevent nonfeeder birds, such as migrant thrushes and warblers, from hitting the glass. So here are some more general suggestions.

9. Branches. Breaking up the reflective ability of a large expanse of glass is key to making it less deadly. A natural way to do this is to suspend tree branches in front of the most-struck windows. Try to do this in a way that will give good coverage to the pane of glass but will not eliminate your view entirely.

8. Plastic food wrap. Another method for breaking up the reflection of glass is to stick large sheets of food wrap across the middle of your windows. Saran wrap and its cousin products can serve this purpose. If you have trouble getting the wrap to stick, spray a light coating of vegetable oil or water on the window before laying down the wrap. The wrap's surface does not reflect the surroundings as the glass does.

7. Spray-on fake snow/vegetable oil. If you can stand it, a light coating of either of these two products will "deaden" a window's reflective ability. Just don't overdo the fake snow or you'll be dreaming of a white Christmas and not be able to see anything out your window.

6. Commercial stickers. There are a few products available commercially that are designed to reduce or prevent window strikes. One of these is a static-adhering sticker that looks like a spiderweb; others are various designs meant to scare birds away with predator faces or with bright metallic reflective surfaces.

5. Mylar balloon/Mylar tubes. If you are willing to shell out $6.99 for a balloon at your local grocery store, make sure you get one of the long-lasting metallic-looking Mylar balloons (often featuring innocuous messages such as "It's A Boy!" or a well-known cartoon character). These shiny balloons will flap around in the breeze and spook birds...