Discover Smith Mountain Lake
SPRING 2016
13
12
hand. Put your feeding station where it
can be viewed from inside your house.
You will also need a handbook that
features eastern birds. The Audubon
Society is just one of several producers
of such books, which can be bought
Online or from a bookstore. Join a
club if you must, but it’s certainly not
necessary. You can enjoy bird watching
all by yourself, right in the privacy of
your own yard – or home.
The American Goldfinch, Purple Finch
and House Finch love thistle seed
(niger or nyjer seed). Because the seeds
are so tiny, a special feeder is required.
These finch feeders are readily available
wherever wild bird feeding supplies are
sold. If you put a finch feeder out early
in March, you’ll be able to watch as the
males “put on” their breeding colors,
and go from a drab olive to bright
yellow. No wonder the ladies can’t resist
them!
Black oil sunflower seeds are good for
most varieties of eastern song birds,
which will beat a path to your feeder,
once they’ve found it. Usually, there is
less waste if you buy just sunflower seeds
rather than the mixtures containing
millet, which most birds will push out
of the feeder to get to a sunflower seed.
In addition to the goldfinch,
woodpeckers are some of the most
colorful and interesting birds to watch,
and several species can be lured to
feeders. The Downy Woodpecker
will readily come to a feeder. Downy
woodpeckers are plentiful throughout
North America, and they are quite
social. They willingly visit parks and
gardens.
Unlike the small song birds that skip and
bounce through the air, woodpeckers
swoop in with purpose and authority.
Other birds step aside when a
woodpecker shows up, even when it is a
Downy, which is the smallest of all of our
woodpeckers. Apparently, all varieties of
birds are aware of how strong the beak
of a woodpecker is. Woodpeckers seek
insects, usually from sick or dead trees,
which means getting past bark and into
wood where the insects live; therefore,
they need strong beaks.
The Downy woodpecker has a white
breast, and is black and white on its
back. The male has a small splash of
red on his head. Because of their small
size (they are only the size of a sparrow),
they are able to forage not only on tree
trunks and major limbs, but also on
smaller branches and even weed stalks.
They are fun to watch, as they are quite
acrobatic, hanging upside down and
hopping sideways along a tree limb on
their short legs. Like other woodpeckers,
the Downy is a cavity nester. It hollows
out its home in dead trees or limbs as
high as 60 feet off the ground, or as
close as 5 feet to the ground. They feed
primarily on insects, but will also eat
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