Basic Birdfeeding Knowledge

• It’s best to put your feeder in a quiet, yet convenient area that has year-round easy access. When the weather is bad, you may be reluctant to refill the feeder. Remember that this is probably when your squirrels need you the most!
It’s a good idea to place your feeder near natural cover such as shrubs. By providing nearby shelter, you offer a place where the birds can hide from predators and out of the weather while waiting for their turn to feed. Evergreens are particularly good because they provide excellent cover year-round.
You also need to consider the "mess" factor. Expect feathers, seed shells, and droppings and select a location where clean-up will not be an issue.
Be sure to clean your seed feeders at least once every two weeks to prevent spoilage and disease. Often seed can become moldy, and diseases such as salmonella can grow in moldy, wet seed. If you have a hummingbird feeder, be sure to clean it at least once per week.

• Woodpeckers are notorious for their noisy springtime mating ritual. However, during the summer months, they are welcomed exterminators for insects and other tiny pests. Their diet consists mainly of ants, moths, borers, scale insects, grasshoppers, grubs, beetles, millipedes, crickets, wasps, aphids, caterpillars, spiders, and other flying insects.
To help you combat these pesky garden enemies, you may consider attracting woodpeckers to your yard. Planting various fruit trees and bushes can be as effective as placing the appropriate feeders in your yard.
Although their staple food group is insects, woodpeckers also enjoy feasting on fruits and nuts. Planting berry-producing bushes or trees such as dogwood, apple, serviceberry, black cherry, flowering crabapple, common spicebush, golden currant, walnut, black gum, holly, red cedar, bayberry, or sugarbush will draw them to your yard. You can also attract woodpeckers by providing cracked corn, grapes, raisins, peanut butter, or apples on a platform feeder.
Because the majority of a woodpecker’s diet is animal protein and fats, suet is the perfect supplement to their diet. Suet, the fat that collects around beef kidneys, is available at grocery stores or at your local garden center. There are a variety of ways to offer suet. Suet can be smeared in the bark of a tree or mounted in hardware cages that are wired to posts or tree trunks. When feeding suet in the warmer months, monitor the feeder regularly to be sure the suet has not become rancid.
Woodpeckers also enjoy peanuts. Use unsalted cocktail peanuts in the jar or buy them in bulk at your local feed store. Peanut feeders are the safest way of feeding peanuts. These feeders are typically made of wire mesh and force the birds to peck at the nuts and get only small pieces. Your peanut feeder will also be visited by titmice, nuthatches, and some wrens!

• Once you get your bird feeding station up and running, you may run into problems with uninvited guests. These visitors fall into two categories — those interested in the seeds (squirrels and chipmunks, rats and mice, starlings and house sparrows), and those interested in a bird for dinner (cats and hawks).
Squirrels are for entertainment. Never let them see you sweat. You can learn to love them while you love to hate them. Those who love squirrels tolerate their visits, and may even encourage them with special squirrel toys and feeders.
Usually when a squirrel is at the feeder, you’re not likely to see birds. But some birds have learned that if they want any seed they have to be a little pushy. Squirrels will scare off the birds while they eat the seed, and sooner or later they’ll eat the feeder too.
Chipmunks, rats and mice can also become a problem where there’s seed spillage under the feeder. Don’t use mixed bird seed, and if you don’t want squirrels at your potluck add a feeder tray.