Shortly after buying our first house we treated ourselves to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Heading back to our car afterwards we noticed a small store selling a variety of enticements for backyard birds. Fifty-four dollars later my spouse is hauling out a 19lb bag of birdseed and I’m balancing a hanging pole and a shopping bag. We eagerly set it up outside our living room window and waited like expectant parents for the first flock to arrive. A few days later we were rewarded by the visit of chickadees, juncos, and house finches. Then came Gus. Gus was an average Eastern Gray squirrel. I had no idea he was to quickly become my arch-nemesis. I thought he would get full and leave, but he parked there and ate his weight in birdseed several times over. A vision of gluttony if I ever saw one!

So, I became his personal trainer. Chasing him off every five minutes or so became a job when I wasn’t at my job. I started taking the feeder in for a day or two then putting it out again hoping to confuse Gus, but it only confused the birds. Wah! Then I decided to just leave it out again, not as phase of serene acceptance, but more with the thought that he could become something else’s delicious meal. A sacrifice to an owl or the neighbor’s cat.

One night I came home after dark to find an large Norway rat sitting in the feeder. From invasive squirrels to invasive rats. I was doing a terrible job at supporting my native habitat. A couple more weeks went by and I pulled the feeder in before nightfall to discourage the rat. I read endless reviews of things that were supposed to keep squirrels away, but after a lot of research, nothing is ever truly squirrel-proof when they’re motivated by food. Gus polished off the last of the birdseed and I ended my tenure as squirrel attendant. Would you like a moist towelettes with that sir?

Fast forward to today. A different house and a whole new game plan for being an ally with nature. I only maintain a birdbath. No one gets gluttonous on water, but we sure do have a lot of dirty birds! It’s nothing fancy, just a large deep pottery dish, 1-2 inches deep with water. I keep the windows dirty and the blinds down, but open to prevent the glass from reflecting a mirror image of the world outside. I figured this out after losing a varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius) and a young robin (Turdus migratorius) to hard impacts. Unfortunately, it’s normal for people to spend over a thousand dollars having their windows professionally cleaned only to wonder why birds keep flying into them. Males will also attack their own reflection particularly during mating season. Every year social media posts pop up from aggravated homeowners wondering what’s up with a particular bird and their window.

One year I left a mole hill alone on a patch of dirt in the backyard. I had no immediate plans to work with that spot, so I left it alone. The mole had brought up fine silt and sand from below. It became a natural dustbath for the birds. They use dustbath to take care of mites and dry spots or itches. Since this particularly dustbath was on a slight hill, the birds turned it into their own amusement park slide. They lined up at the top and roll down by ones and twos. It was a joy to watch.

In the spring I hang baskets of begonias for the Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna), Dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) and Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus). The hummingbird uses the plants as a food source, the juncos and chickadees use them for nesting sites. My oldest hummingbird friend is affectionately named “snowbutt.” Not a very attractive name I know, but one winter I thought he had a small blob of snow stuck to his butt, but it’s just that his little tush feathers happen to be bright white. Sometimes he hovers at eye level like he wants to have a word with me. He eagerly awaits my returns from the garden nursery. Dashing about like a tiny puppy with wings, all up in the plants I hold between my arms. In the winter when we get a snow for a week my plastic hummingbird feeder blooms just for him. One-part white sugar to four-parts water boiled for five minutes and cooled completely before pouring into the feeder. If the temperature is well below freezing, I use handwarmers held with tape and an old sock to keep the nectar from freezing. I bring it in at night to keep it from freezing and also from bears. Bears in the Pacific Northwest don’t experience true hibernation, they go through torpor instead. Basically, they dream walk through winter…more or less. This is about the only time I get a really good look at Missus Snowbutt, she’s much more elusive than her mate. Ironic, because her favorite plant in the yard is the hardy hibiscus ‘Aphrodite’ (Hibiscus syriacus ‘Aphrodite’). Another great hummingbird plant is Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ with its dark orange-red flowers in the summer.

To help other birds year-round I have rotting stumps and a dead tree for the larvae eaters in undisturbed areas of the yard. I leave the seed heads on perennial plants and sun-dried Oregon grapes left where they fell.

So, what did I learn? I learned that nature doesn’t like micromanagers and that doing less is how you do more for the habitat around you.

Resourceful links:

Common bird parasites and tips for feeder maintenance

Birds, Bees, and Wildlife (wnps.org)

Search, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Funny YouTube video: