Johnsons's Garden Centers Text File document - copyright 2003 
PDFfile available at http://www.johnsonsgarden.com/newsletter/birdsquirrels.html

Backyard Banquet for Birds
December 2003
Mike Hargrove, Johnson's Ridge Rd. Greenhouse Manager

    Just because it's cold outside doesn't mean your winter landscape
has to lose all its interest. Attract some color to your landscape by
inviting the birds to your yard for hours of entertainment. While a lot
of fruit and insect eating birds have headed to warmer climates for the
winter, many colorful birds make Kansas their winter home; and you can
enjoy them by offering a source of food and water for their survival
this winter. Backyard bird feeding is not rocket science, but you will
get more enjoyment and attract the birds you want by offering the right
food in the right feeder.

    Tree feeding birds such as chickadees, goldfinches and woodpeckers
prefer to dine at tube feeders suspended from a pole or tree branch,
filled with a mixture of oiled sunflower, nuts and safflower, or just
the individual seeds. Try Chickadee & Nuthatch Feast or Bountiful Nut
Crunch in a tube feeder. If you want to cater to the goldfinches use a
finch feeder filled with Nyjer or Super Finch Mix.

    A lot of our winter residents prefer to eat at ground level. This
can be somewhat messy for a gardener so try a ground feeder to attract
juncos, doves, cardinals, and the native sparrows. Using a mixture of
proso millet and oil sunflower such as Pretty Boy Mix or Gourmet Delight
will entice a wide variety of these birds.

    If you have only one feeder and want to attract the widest variety
of birds, a hopper style feeder is the best choice. Mount it on a pole
or post where you can see it from the house and low enough that you can
easily fill it. Use Gourmet Delight, Chickadee & Nuthatch Feast or Tidy
Gardener and both ground feeding and tree feeding birds will flock to
the feeder to find their favorite meal.

    As a gardener, one of my pet peeves about feeding the birds is the
mess they make with all those shells and all the surprise plants coming
up throughout the flower beds the next spring. Well, there is a neat
solution for this dilemma. Tidy Gardener contains seeds that will not
germinate and leaves no mess behind. It contains sunflower chips,
hulled  proso millet and Nyjer and it is a tidy solution to messy bird
feeding. Bountiful Nut Crunch is another "clean" birdseed mix that
leaves no mess behind after the birds have had their fill. It's a good
choice for tube and nut feeders.