December 1997/January 1998, Volume 31, Number 4

'Place to Play' Gets Go-ahead January General Meeting Pee Wee Winter Outings Thank You Plans for Mayacamas Sanctuary Volunteer Opportunities Observations Midweek Walkabout Results Birdathon in February Field Trip Report 1997 Christmas Bird Count Re-name Pee Wee Ideal Holiday Gift Through the Garden Gate: Backyard Birding Asilomar Regional Conference, April 4-7 Welcome New Members Bird Watching on TV Coffee Donation

Through the Garden Gate Backyard Birding by Judy Brinkerhoff Winter Bird Feeding...How To & What Having grown up on the east coast, and my parents being birdfeeding-oriented, they hung suet feeders throughout the winter for chickadees, woodpeckers, jays, and other cold and hungry birds. Due to our milder climate, the natural bird larder is generally fuller and suet is not truly necessary. However, it's a wonderful offering and you will attract Chestnut-backed Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, titmice, sparrows, woodpeckers, jays and others. Keep the suet feeder out of the sun to avoid it going rancid, and hang it (and all feeders) where there is plenty of tree or shrub branch cover. Birds need to be able to quickly escape predators, such as Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks and house cats. Ten feet from cover will probably work, and keep the feeders high enough so cats can't leap up. I've surrounded my platform feeder, which sits in a tree just two feet above the deck, by wire mesh. My cat can no longer get access to it, either from the deck or the tree. The platform feeder is kept covered with a thin layer of baby-chick scratch, which I get in bulk from feed and grain stores. It's a mixture of cracked corn, wheat, and oats. The California Towhees and Spotted Towhees, Mourning Doves, Acorn Woodpeckers, Scrub Jays, Dark-eyed Juncos, and Golden-crowned Sparrows dine and scratch, knocking lots of grain to the ground below, where they all retire later for more scratching and dirt-dining. My large, rectangular-shaped tube feeder, with wire mesh outside the plastic tube, is filled at all times with black sunflower seeds. It's constantly busy with Lesser and American Goldfinches, House Finches, Pine Siskins, chickadees, titmice, Acorn Woodpeckers, Black-headed Grosbeaks and their babies in the late summer, even the Golden-crowned Sparrows love it. Another, smaller tube feeder with wooden dowel perches, hangs nearby with a combination of thistle seed and black sunflower seeds. For some reason, certain birds seem to prefer one type of perch over the other. The siskins, titmice, finches, and chickadees cherish the thistle seed. Don't forget the hummingbirds...see the November, 1997 Leaves for more information. Fun For Families Why not decorate an evergreen in your yard (one that can be seen from inside the house) with edible ornaments for the birds? Kids can make strings of raisins, cranberries, popcorn and peanuts in the shell and tie them from limb to limb. Slice bagels in half, spread with peanut butter, dip in birdseed and hang like miniature wreaths from the branches. Cut slices of apples and oranges and fasten them onto branches. Sprigs and stems of millet, sorghum, wheat, even corn, can be tied to the branches. If you have a stash of pinecones: melt together suet and peanut butter (1 cup each), add about 3 cups of cornmeal, and when cool, pack the mixture into the openings of the pinecones. Roll them in birdseed and hang out on the tree.

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