I finally saw the catbird I’ve been hearing in the yard the last few days mimicking other bird calls and even crickets chirping. It’s got the bald eagle call down pat. The first group of sandhill cranes of the year just flew over the house a few minutes ago.
Talk about timing.
This guy just showed up at the suet log.
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birds here in Cold Spring are far and few between. but they are thick at the cabin. mainly woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees. i put up one of the peanut butter feeders, small branches with holes in them, mix some sunflower seeds in the peanut butter….. after the first day they clean it out daily!!!!!
birds here in Cold Spring are far and few between. but they are thick at the cabin. mainly woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees. i put up one of the peanut butter feeders, small branches with holes in them, mix some sunflower seeds in the peanut butter….. after the first day they clean it out daily!!!!!
You deer hunt. Keep the fat you trim off the critter and render it in the oven in an old pot or pan, strain it to get the cracklings out of it then stir in a jar of cheap creamy peanut butter and use that to stuff your feeder.
I heard a cardinal this morning and wanted to kick it. Worse two weeks ago. Im bitter we didn’t get winter weather this year.
Had a male Cardinal slam into the deck window earlier in a puff of red feathers.
He landed upside down on the deck but still breathing. 30 minutes later he was upright but obviously dazed.
Sat there for 2 hours and then flew off. Should have taken a pic dang it.
Bet he still has a headache though.
I heard a cardinal this morning and wanted to kick it. Worse two weeks ago. Im bitter we didn’t get winter weather this year.
Cardinals are here year round. Kick a robin if you must.
All winter I’ve had a steady flow of cardinals, juncos, chickadees, and downy & redbellied woodpeckers in my yard in Saint Paul. Noticing now the finches are starting to show up again, earlier than normal for me.
I had a hummingbird do that several years ago. Since it was so small I couldn’t tell if it was dead or not. I’d never seen one really close, so I went on the patio and gently picked it up. While holding it in my palm and looking at it closely, it came to, jumped up to a hover four inches from my nose for a couple seconds, chattered at me, then took off.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>glenn57 wrote:</div>
birds here in Cold Spring are far and few between. but they are thick at the cabin. mainly woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees. i put up one of the peanut butter feeders, small branches with holes in them, mix some sunflower seeds in the peanut butter….. after the first day they clean it out daily!!!!!You deer hunt. Keep the fat you trim off the critter and render it in the oven in an old pot or pan, strain it to get the cracklings out of it then stir in a jar of cheap creamy peanut butter and use that to stuff your feeder.
He’s gotta shoot one first..lol. I gotta figure out what to do with the sparrows. I get lots of other birds but it seems the sparrows are taking over.
yea ols swimjiggen…..dont you got some sheephead to catch or clean!!!! 
should we talk roosters!!!!!! 
Two again this morning.
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Those Pileated Woodpeckers are awesome birds. Cool shots.
Those Pileated Woodpeckers are awesome birds. Cool shots.
This is the 4th year we’ve had a pair. The females are the largest. Last year again we had two chicks with them and when the family showed up to eat I may as well have hung a side of fat pork out there. Man, they can eat.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
I heard a cardinal this morning and wanted to kick it. Worse two weeks ago. Im bitter we didn’t get winter weather this year.Cardinals are here year round. Kick a robin if you must.
All winter I’ve had a steady flow of cardinals, juncos, chickadees, and downy & redbellied woodpeckers in my yard in Saint Paul. Noticing now the finches are starting to show up again, earlier than normal for me.
I mean when they start their spring singing routine. Same with purple finches. One of them was going at it yesterday too. Just a little early.
I gotta figure out what to do with the sparrows.
I have a Merlin that is picking off the sparrows that often raid the bird feeder. I see it almost daily. The first time I didn’t know what it was. It swooped in while I looking away but I saw a fast moving shadow. I turned around and couldn’t find what the movement was from. But then I took a few steps and saw it standing on the ground with a sparrow under its talons. After that incident, I’ve made a point of watching for it. It’ll dive bomb in and grab a sparrow in mid-flight.
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<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Swimjiggin wrote:</div>
I gotta figure out what to do with the sparrows.I have a Merlin that is picking off the sparrows that often raid the bird feeder. I see it almost daily. The first time I didn’t know what it was. It swooped in while I looking away but I saw a fast moving shadow. I turned around and couldn’t find what the movement was from. But then I took a few steps and saw it standing on the ground with a sparrow under its talons. After that incident, I’ve made a point of watching for it. It’ll dive bomb in and grab a sparrow in mid-flight.
That’s really cool. I have never heard of anyone else seeing those birds. They periodically hang out around my cabin so I get a really good look at them stationary and close. Babies too one year.
I’ve seen merlin chasing birds in my yard and didn’t know that’s what it was. Like a fighter jet zinging through the branches and around the trees. I used to just call it a sparrow hawk but now realize it was a merlin. Turns out “sparrow hawks” are kestrel, which I know as kestrel of all things.
Suzuki, I initially thought it was a Kestrel. Once I got a better look at it, I was able to verify what it was.
birds here in Cold Spring are far and few between. but they are thick at the cabin. mainly woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees. i put up one of the peanut butter feeders, small branches with holes in them, mix some sunflower seeds in the peanut butter….. after the first day they clean it out daily!!!!!
We get quite a few birds at our place, we are between Cold Spring and Richmond. Mostly morning doves, finches, cardinals, then your everywhere birds. We even had a few Sanhills Cranes in the back yard, some Turkey and Pheasant. But there is a creek nearby and we have a small pond in our backyard. The waterfowl usually like that spot.
My cabin is a raptor magnet. Lots of hooting owls at night lately. Two weeks ago a pair of eagles decided to have sex in my tree. That was disturbing. 
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Swimjiggin wrote:</div>
I gotta figure out what to do with the sparrows.I have a Merlin that is picking off the sparrows that often raid the bird feeder.
Can I barrow him..lol. During the summer we have a Coopers hawk that’ll control the chipmunk population under the feeders.
I heard the chickadees spring song yesterday. My favorite
I heard the chickadees spring song yesterday. My favorite
Just the thought of that sound takes me to the exact same spot in my childhood every time. My Dad’s opening day trout fishing spot in Michigan.
One of them is back. Big brute. That birch log is 17” long.
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One of them is back. Big brute. That birch log is 17” long.
What is the scoop on a birch log? I have Pileated Woodpeckers that come in to my suet feeders. They look prehistoric and are a welcome site to me. They commonly land on living Maple trees that are close to the suet. Is there any tricks behind the birch log or just a place to land?
There are three 2-1/2″ holes bored thry the log. I stuff the holes with a rendered deer fat/peanut butter blend. Woodpeckers of all kinds love the stuff.
From my three deer and fat that a buddy or two dropped off I had 22 pounds of raw fat. I chunked it up into 1″cubes and put it in a big enamelware pot and roasted it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5 hours, then I strained the solids out of the liquid fat and mixed in four 16 ounce jars of the cheapest creamy I could find and stirred until all the peanut butter was melted and mixed in. Then let it cool and knock the chunk out of the pot and bust it up into sizes that can be handled easy.
I have maybe ten of the plastic trays that commercial bird suet cakes come in and I fill about half way with black oil sunflower seed, then pour some of the fat concoction in to fill the trays. These cakes go to a conventional cake feeder. To stuff the log, I place a few pieces of the fat in a plastic bowl and microwave it for about a minute to soften it and then stuff the holes. The solids that come from straining I put in 1 pound coffee cans and will eventually put them in a round suet cage. Again, the woodies love this too.
The log will need to be hung from a wire hanger about 2 feet long. The one I use is only 1/4″ diameter and squirrels cannot climb it but it’s there more for the coon that like to think the fat is a nice treat.
When rendering the fat, there is no objectionable odor…. smells like a roast is cooking in the oven. Deer fat is very, very low in moisture so there is little loss when rendering. I got f coffee cans of solids plus right around 17 pounds of liquid fat from the 22 pounds I began with.
Thank you for the feedback.
I usually hang my suet feeders from branches on a tree. I used to hang by rope but no matter how long you make the rope the racoons just pull up the rope and rip in to the feeders. I switched over to thin wire from gone by days of a electric fence (cattle) to hang them. The racoons just can’t get a good enough grip on the wire to pull it up.
Finished my little bird feeder project. 
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There ya go. They look good! Now go find some car-kills to harvest the fat. Or just buy some store suet blocks and use that to fill the holes.
There ya go. They look good! Now go find some car-kills to harvest the fat. Or just buy some store suet blocks and use that to fill the holes.
car kills…….gotta have deer around for that!!
i actually have seperate feeders for the store bought blocks. i fill these with cheap peanut butter sunflower seeds mixed in.
at the cabin i fill it daily!!!!
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