I made a nice habitat for the birds which included cutting down the tree (a victim of last year's ice storm) from which I hung the feeders, so I thought the birds would be all right au naturel.
Then I read the reports that we might have finch irruptions down here & succumbed.
I went to my nice garden store & bought bent iron poles called shepherd crooks (would hate to try to use them if I were an actual shepherd) and hung the bird feeders from them. I got both poles in about a week before the ground froze solid, placed in some mulch in the garden so the seed shells wouldn't kill any plants.
Then I put out a suet feeder and filled a second with a mix of black sunflower & nyjer seed & sat back.
I have a lot of house sparrows.
If you want to attract house sparrows, I learned, put the feeders near shrubbery. They appreciate the cover.
The brush pile that I'm so proud of is a couple of feet from the feeders & provides lovely cover for the house sparrows.
I got the feeder poles firmly planted into the ground before it froze. I checked.
When the house sparrows are done I have occasional visits from juncos, the odd chickadee, sometimes a cardinal, even about 3 house finches. I'm surprised to see the house finches after the fairly large numbers last year--I expected they'd have shared dread diseases & killed each other off. No goldfinches.
The suet feeder on an iron pole is a great improvement bird-wise from a suet feeder on a tree. Sometimes a woodpecker (downy) visits; once I thought I saw a chickadee on it. So far it's holding out against the squirrels and raccoons.
Yesterday, in the warm weather, the Cooper's assumed his usual high viewing perch in a tall dead tree & had all his feathers blown about in the wind. He's been here all fall & has sometimes shown himself this winter so I was pleased but not too surprised to see him.
Pretty quiet at the feeders really, and I don't think it's only because the house sparrows are so comfortable.
