Three Practical Winter Bird Feeding Hacks I Wish I'd Thought of Years Ago

 TIP ONE: Don't waste the Zick Dough! (Recipe below).

I had spent part of my morning trying to foil starlings by bringing the lid of a two-part Zick Dough feeder lower and lower, trying to exclude those filthy birds who are not content to gobble all the expensive food; they also crap in my feeders AND heated birdbath.  One starling was managing to wriggle through despite the drastically lowered dome. Arrrghhhh!!

Finally I put a great big deep Plexiglas dome over the whole affair, and I was watching with amusement while the tufted titmice figured it out immediately, and everybody else just dithered. I could probably rank my feeder birds in order by intelligence, and TUTI would be the KING. Tufted titmice were the first birds to cross the field from the woods to take seed from a feeder at this house in the winter of 1992, and they are always the first to try anything new, and master it. The others just watch the titmice.

The Plexi dome proved far too daunting for anyone but the titmice, so I settled for lowering the top of my teeny Zick Dough feeder  even more until only the little birds and the birds that can cling upside down could comfortably land and get inside.

No problema for the clever Carolina wren!

Female hairy woodpecker: Well, how do I work this?

                     She figured it out! So good to see only the birds I want eating the really good stuff: Zick                           dough and dried mealworms! So: Get you a feeder with wingnuts and a top you can lower                                   way down, and feed Zick Dough and dried mealworms in that one. 

TIP TWO:

I'll share an innovation born of sheer exasperation with the starlings. I was dumping and cleaning and refilling my heated dog dish bird waterer twice a day. Here is the result of ONE DAY of starling use: 

Of course just as much goes into the water, turning it into disgusting disease-spreading fecal soup. UGH I HATE having starlings at the feeders! And cleaning birdbaths in single-digit weather is NOT among my favorite activities! Out here in the sticks, starlings are a huge problem ONLY when snow covers the ground, or the temperature dips into the 20's. As soon as the snow cover melts and the temperatures rise above freezing, starlings leave to make their living honestly, grubbing in the soil for larvae. But these last couple weeks have been tough, with starlings mobbing, gobbling, and pooping on everything.

It suddenly occurred to me as I washed the bird bath yet again that, instead of using solid rocks to protect most of the water's surface, I should use something unstable, lightweight and movable. Something the starlings couldn't stand on while they took their massive dumps into the water and onto the rocks.

I ran to the greenhouse and got a lightweight plastic plant saucer and floated it on the surface of the heated water.

                                        

C'est voila!! The saucer floats and moves around, and the starlings don't want to sit in it. They will tip it, and water runs into it, which they drink. The rest of the birds drink around the edges.

I haven't changed the water in two days and there is NO poop in it! Here, a starling and a rare winter brown-headed cowbird drink clean water, for once! It ain't pretty, but it gets the job done.

And a third Most Excellent Dead of Winter Feeding Tip:  

For 30 years, I've toted a big muck bucket full of jars of different feeds from my detached garage, where they're stored, to the feeding station. I do this three times a day in hideously cold weather like what we've been enjoying the last two weeks. Let me admit: it's good for my step count, but it gets old.

Finally it occurred to me that I should store the feed out by the feeders. Duh. I mean, why didn't I think of this 30 years ago?

I took one of my stout galvanized trash cans out to the feeding station area and filled it with peanut and protein powder jars that are themselves full of the jillion different bird foods I offer. 

Like the floating saucer, it ain't pretty, but it do get the job done.

Of course, this tip does not apply anywhere there are bears, and it certainly works best when the coons are sleeping like little angels in their tree cavities.

While I'm at it:

Zick Dough, Improved

Combine dry ingredients: 

2 C chick starter, unmedicated 

2 C quick oats 

3 C flour (Start with 2, and add more if need be)

 1 ½ C yellow cornmeal 

 Melt together in microwave: 

1 C lard 

1 C peanut butter

 Slowly add liquid fats to dry mixture while stirring or mixing on low until dough forms. If it’s too gummy, add a little more flour and cornmeal until it’s soft, dry and crumbly. Serve as a treat in a small dish with a plexi dome to protect from rain. Store at room temperature in jars. Offer only below 55 degrees, as it’s too rich for summer feeding.

Fun With Pine Warblers

One of my gray birches has decided to leaf out on April 2. You go, little tree. The rest are still in tight winter bud. 

This female cardinal looks fine in new leaves.

 I cannot tell you what a thrill it is for me to hear a pine warbler singing incessantly just outside my studio window. I've lived here outside Whipple in the southeast corner of Ohio since November 1992 and I have had pine warblers breed occasionally in the tall Virginia pines that line my oilwell access road.  In the early 2000's I saw a female take the fuzz off a spent dandelion and take it off to line her nest.  And they bred there in 2022.

But this year, I have a male who has claimed the feeders as his, and he commutes several hundred yards out to sing on his territory in the row of pines in between picking at the peanuts at my feeder. I know this is a reasonably common feeder bird in the Deep South and Southeast, but it is a Big Freakin' Deal for me to have a PIWA making hisself at home and helping himself to the food. 

Along with the white-breasted nuthatches, he's a peanut fan. He's like Texas toilet paper too...he don't take s---t off nobody. Not afraid of the hairy woodpecker. He just stays put and picks away.

It's too durn cold to set up my WarblerFall yet. It's still freezing many nights. So he comes down to the ugly blue heated dog dish and drinks there. Charmed, I'm sure! I can't wait to see him bathe in the WarblerFall! 

I've been thoroughly enjoying him for about three weeks, as he arrived March 8. I had begun to wonder when a female might appear. And on April 1, there she was, hopping about on the ground near the feeders, picking up who knows what.

You'd hardly know she was a warbler; you'd hardly know she was there. Not a speck of color on her anywhere; she was like the male in grayscale.

She had found a piece of peanut and was gagging it down when the male dropped down, apparently too close for comfort. I was thrilled to get them both in the frame. 

She, on the other hand, took violent exception to the male's intrusion, and leapt on him, pecking at his eyes! 

I had never seen anything quite like it. I guess she's not ready to play nice and be his mate. If this is pair bonding, um, no thanks. 

Over and over they rolled, she pressing the attack; he just trying to defend himself. At least that's how it looked to me. I did not see him peck back; he mostly dodged her blows.

I got concerned for him. 

When they finally broke free of each other, she arrowed after him and chased him to a nearby birch.

Only a minute or so later, he was singing from a feeder hook, unperturbed and apparently not dissuaded.

Phew!! Mr. PIWA, you have a tiger by the tail. Good luck with her.

I've started feeding small amounts of Zick Dough on these cold raw March and April days, to help early migrants as well as residents. The birds sure do appreciate it. 

For the recipe and an advisory on warm-weather feeding of Zick Dough, click here. 

Today, April 2, I was thrilled to bits to see the female pine warbler partaking of the high-energy food! 

She may have seen the pair of Carolina wrens eating it...she's a quick study. I have yet to see the male warbler take any, surprisingly, though he hovers around the suet feeder and picks up millet from the ground.

Carolina wrens love Zick Dough.

So do white-breasted nuthatches.

I'm delighted to have something nutritious to offer these beautiful pine warblers on raw spring days. 

Let's face it, I'm a freak for warblers.  Always have loved these delicate, long-distance travelers and their beautiful colors and songs.

Peanuts. If they're good enough for nuthatches, they're good enough for me!

Eat up, Mean Mrs. Mustard. And be nicer to your mate. You've got eggs to make. Soon I'll put out crushed eggshells for you. I want to hear and host pine warblers every spring!

And I can't wait to see them use the WarblerFall!

15 September 2022...Mean Mrs. Mustard, that kinda looks like you!

Snob Feeding with Zick Dough

 

Let's face it. Along with the fabulous birds we all want to see, the sapsuckers with their velvet berets, there's a lot of riffraff in the winter bird feeding world. 

One starling at the Zick Dough is unique and beautiful.

Eight starlings is expensive. Dirty, too. Then 30...ugh! Starlings can take a fine homemade food like Zick Dough and turn it into pounds of poop faster than any bird alive. 

We fill up our guts then we turn it into @#$# 

Then we get rid of it

to quote the Holy Modal Rounders in "Slurf Song"

If you go listen, and I hope you will, you will understand something of my musical roots, and my sense of humor. Best sung in a roomful of filthy hippies who gleefully shout the backup lines.

Anyway, I like to keep my homemade Zick Dough Improved away from starlings. The way to do this is to offer it in a place starlings (and house sparrows) fear to go. These imported birds know we hate them, and they won't generally enter a feeder that looks like a trap, or that brings them too close to people.

Back in Jemima Jay days, soon after her release in June 2017, I devised a little feeder she could use, that other birds hesitated to exploit.

It's under the crank-out window right by my studio drawing table. I stocked it with things like pecan halves and chicken breast and basmati rice, fresh corn, snap peas...the buffet was deluxe and she thrived on it.  It was our little secret! 

Of course, given such fabulous fare, it didn't take long for Jemima's  little feeder to catch on with the other birds. This was mostly fine with me, and it's had wonderful consequences of late.

I've simplified the offerings, keeping it to Zick Dough Improved. See bottom of post for recipe. 

The Snob Feeder was easy to make.  It's just a canning strainer with a handle, and a black alligator style clip from the hardware store. Why a strainer? Well, rain goes through it, so you don't make Zick Dough Soup every time it rains. That said, I feed small amounts frequently, and withhold the food if it's really pouring. 

 I've clipped the strainer to the shelf bracket that supports my big bird screen--a panel of black crop netting strung across a frame of PVC pipe, which prevents birds from killing themselves on my big studio window. 

For more on that, go here:

A Solution to Window Strikes

It's easy to access! I just crank out the studio window, put a handful of Zick Dough in the strainer, and go back to work. 

Now I'm going to show you who benefited from the inside knowledge of my little "Snob Feeder."

Here's the male white-breasted nuthatch who made an appearance in my last post about ice storms. If you click on the photo you can see he's missing a couple primary feathers on his right wing--pulled out by getting stuck in ice in his roost hole overnight. 

You can also see that the birds have made a hole in the screen that they duck in and out of. :)

 Here's my adorable little female red-breasted nuthatch. Squee!! They're so much smaller than the white-breasted nuthatch, and red-breasts are only here in SE Ohio in winter.

Needless to say, tufted titmice are my most enthusiastic customers, as are Carolina chickadees. They both jump for joy for Zick Dough!

Cardinals love Zick Dough too, but my window feeder pictures aren't so hot. So here's a nice old couple. Look at all the red on that female, speaking of  her advanced age and the higher testosterone levels that come with it. The higher the T, the stronger her color.

Now, white-throated sparrows aren't folks you'd normally think would clamber into a food strainer right next to a window, but...

after thinking about it and watching other birds enjoying this intriguing looking food, like this buff-striped bird is doing, I have several who have made the leap! Here's a pretty white- striped morph. Studies have shown that, while they may not be as attractive to our eye, buff-striped males make better dads. :)

Speaking of sparrows, my sweet little song sparrow Ball, hand-raised last fall and still with me, loves Zick dough! He remembers it from when he was a babe.

If you click on the photo you will see the fault bar across his tail that is his nametag.

This fox sparrow will eat the Zick Dough I sprinkle on the ground below, but he's a little too shy to come in to the feeder. Having him this close is a thrill. Pardon the photo--the bird screen was iced up. 

Same for the eastern towhees. I have SEVEN this winter! Never have had more than a couple. I love these two huge sparrow species!

This lovely male downy woodpecker likes to come and go by the hole in the netting. He's welcome.

This might be his mate. I like the way she hangs down to get her treat.

Dark-eyed juncos are another ground feeder one wouldn't expect would climb into a homemade feeder, but here's one feasting.

Carolina wrens are regular. Like any insectivore, they need nourishing food to survive such hard winters as this one.

This beautiful American tree sparrow is thinking hard about coming in for Zick dough...

but settles for the dried mealworms I toss onto the snow several times a day. The birds were a bit slow to catch onto this new treat (just like me). But it's so nice to have something nourishing to offer the birds when it stays so cold for weeks at a time. 

Towhees, juncos and tree sparrows dig them! 

Pro-tip (I'm full of them today!)  The photo below was taken at Tractor Supply. Here's the choice. You can buy 17 oz. (just a hair over ONE POUND) of dried mealworms in the wild bird feeding section for $19.99. That's about $20/lb. I don't think the birds give a hoot about the "berry flavor" they add. That's just to get YOU to buy it for $20/lb.

OR you could walk to the chicken feeding section in back, and buy FIVE POUNDS of the same thing for $39.99. That's about $7/lb.

Your choice. They keep well. I tried to buy them first from my friend Tim Vocke at thenaturesway.com but he tells me that all dried mealworms are coming out of China these days. He's my first resort for live mealworms for my rehab birds. 

I hope this photo essay has shown you that you can cultivate personal relationships with birds using the snob feeding concept. Offer fabulous high quality, high protein food in small amounts, and make them work for it. Bring them in right up close to a window where you spend most of your time. They'll learn to recognize and trust you, watch your rhythms and anticipate your moves, and you'll get an intimate look into their lives. 

This is the fourth winter this beautiful female yellow-bellied sapsucker has spent with me.

I have had the great pleasure of getting to know her, teaching her how to eat strange things, and watching her slip into full adult plumage.

She brings me joy. Long may she run.

Here's that recipe.

 ZICK DOUGH IMPROVED: SMALL BATCH 

Melt in the microwave and stir together: 

1 cup peanut butter 

1 cup lard 

In a large mixing bowl, combine 

2 cups unmedicated chick starter 

2 cups quick oats 

1 cup yellow cornmeal 

 1 cup flour

Add melted lard/peanut butter mixture slowly to the combined dry ingredients and mix well.

Stir constantly.Stop adding the melted fats when the mix is crumbly and a little dry.

                                                    If you have extra PB/lard, just save it for the next batch.

                                                        You can adjust the texture with a little  extra flour.

NOTE: This is a COLD WEATHER OFFERING ONLY.  It's too rich to feed once the weather warms up. If you do feed in spring, keep it to cold snaps. It should be regarded as a treat in warmer weather, NOT a steady diet. 

Most frequently asked questions, to save time: 

I don't want to use lard. Can I substitute vegetable shortening?

You can, but the birds won't like it. I've done the side-by-side multi-species taste tests.

Isn't white flour bad for birds?

No.

I'm going to use organic almond flour and all-natural hand-ground peanut-butter.

Knock your$elf out! I u$e $tore brand wheat flour and PB becau$e I'm feeding a LOT of bird$$$$