For the Birds!

Ever since Joe was enrolled in A Bird's Eye View camp at the Bell Museum last summer, he's been pretty into birds. As many of his Fans know, he is into animals generally, but birds are of particular interest. So last summer, we got a bird feeder and hung it from a tree. In retrospect, we realize we probably fed as many squirrels as birds. This summer, we acquired another feeder for a different type of seed. The birds wanted nothing to do with it. Humph. Then one day, while The Birds were out and about, they stumbled into a store called Wild Birds Unlimited where they asked why no finches were coming to dine on their nyjer seed and were set straight: it gets stale easily and gets compacted when wet. They were given new seed and bought some silica. One evening and replinished seed later, we awoke to two pairs of finches darting about the backyard.

It's been an education, Fans.

But the squirrels continued to get the better of us. All of us have run them off looking like deranged maniacs. We spent one morning thinking we'd bested them, watching them slide down the shepherd's hook pole slicked with olive oil, but a few hours later, they'd figured a way to best us. Joe informed us that squirrels can jump five to six feet up in the air. So there you go.

All of this is why we are now the proud owners of a bird feeding "system," including a "baffle"--that black cylindrical object on the pool in the picture--which apparently baffles the squirrels. And baffled they have been!

Now that we've run off the squirrels, we've seen all manner of birds: cardinals, finches, chickadees, a downy woodpecker, and a bunch of gray birds and brown birds we've not yet identified. Together, they clear out the entire feeder on the left in the picture above--!!!!!

Which is why we had to find a bird feeder filler while we head off up North, as they say here, on summer vacation.

Catch you on the flip, Fans.