The Bird Watchers

Attracting Birds To Your Backyard Is Easy -- Just Follow These 9 Basic Steps

Lexington, KY (PRWEB) July 19, 2007 -- "When it comes to setting up a backyard bird watching station, the options can leave the beginner confused," says Bob Kegebein, creator of a new backyard bird watching web site called http://www.bird-feeder-and-bird-house-guide.com

Because there are so many options available, it's hard to know where to start. But follow these 9 steps and you'll be well on the way to a busy backyard bird watching station.

First, the essentials:

?The hopper feeder is the workhorse of backyard bird watching. It's the single most important component of a station and will attract tons of birds. Take a look at this list: cardinal, blue jay, grosbeak, tanager, woodpecker. Fill the hopper with any seed except white millet and thistle.

?Supplement your hopper feeder with a sunflower seed tube feeder. Small birds will often shy away from hoppers, but readily feed from a tube. Contrastingly, larger birds struggle with the tube feeder's small perches, thus leaving the smaller titmice, finches and sparrows to dine in peace. As with the hopper, the only seed you won't use in a tube is white millet and thistle.

?Essential to any bird feeding station is the thistle feeder. This small port tube feeder will attract the American goldfinch, house finch, sparrow, redpoll and other small birds. Of course, you'll fill the thistle tube feeder with thistle.

?The suet feeder is a superb way to attract woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees.

?Often overlooked, water is a must for any backyard bird feeding station. There's no sight quite like a bathing songbird.

?Provide shelter to your feathered friends and you'll attract more birds. Competition for natural cavities is intense as humans continue to scar the landscape. Put up a bird house or two -- you can attract wrens, screech owls, wood ducks, chickadees and many other birds with a nest box.

Supplement a station with some or all of these additional components:

?You'd be amazed at what may appear when you offer fruit. Offer apples, oranges, grapes or raisins and you may be visited by cedar waxwings, mockingbirds, catbirds, Baltimore orioles, red-bellied woodpeckers, tanagers or any number of other birds.

?Nothing is more attractive to insect-eating birds than the mealworm. Tons of birds will eat mealworms, including blue birds, woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, robins, thrashers and thrushes.

?Offer peanuts, both shelled and in-the-shell. Nuthatches, chickadees, woodpeckers, blue jays and others will love you for this.

Attracting wildlife to the backyard is a great way to decompress. So set up a bird feeding station, sit back with the family, relax and watch the wild birds.

Robert Kegebein is the creator of the Web site http://www.bird-feeder-and-bird-house-guide.com His web site offers tons of information about backyard bird watching, bird feeders and bird houses. Visitors will also find information about specific wild birds and how to attract them to the yard.

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