Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat: Attract Birds With Homemade Treat Cakes
Posted: November 19, 2011 Filed under: animal artwork, backyard, backyard wildlife habitat, birds, cats, garden, Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat | Tags: backyard wildlife habitat, bird feeders, bird treats, birds, feeding backyard birds", feeding wild birds, homemade bird treats, making bird treats, wild bird art, wild birds, wild birds note cards 2 Comments
Birdwatching Cats
Among the requirements for my Backyard Wildlife Habitat, I provide food and shelter for native wild bird species all year round because aside from being fun to watch, they are an important insect guard in my vegetable garden.
The red-bellied woodpecker turns to look at me and my cats.
In winter, however, I am compelled to put feeders up everywhere I can hang one, and at least one seed feeder is visible from each window in the house as well as suet feeders, ear corn and water. Not only does it give the birds a safe place to eat, drink and be merry, it gives my cats something to do and it gives my eyes a break while I slave at the computer all day into the night.
Birds?! Attract them with homemade suet cakes
Posted: December 17, 2009 Filed under: agway cats, birds, cats, garden | Tags: backyard wildlife habitat, bird feeders, bird treats, birds, feeding backyard birds", feeding wild birds, homemade bird treats, making bird treats, wild bird art, wild birds, wild birds note cards 4 Comments
Ms. Wren had better watch her step
My yard is a registered Backyard Wildlife Habitat, deemed so by the National Wildlife Federation. Among other requirements, I provide food and shelter for native wild bird species all year round because aside from being fun to watch, they are an important insect guard in my vegetable garden.
In winter, however, I am compelled to put feeders up everywhere I can hang one, and at least one seed feeder is visible from each window in the house as well as suet feeders, ear corn and water. Not only does it give the birds a safe place to eat, drink and be merry, it gives my cats something to do and it gives my eyes a break while I slave at the computer all day into the night.
Suet cakes, or something like them, are an important part of the diet for insect-eating wild birds because it provides them with appropriate protein. It also provides a medium for mixing in other goodies like nuts and dried fruit and flavoring it with peanut butter or fruit juice.
Yes, I like to spoil my avian visitors–and save a little money in the process, plus use materials that would otherwise be composted or discarded.
Bird Breakfast
When suet cakes go on sale at my local Agway, I stock up, but at other times I put together a dozen suet cakes for about 50 cents each. The goodies I add are fresh or dried apple peelings from pies I’ve made for the holidays, older somewhat tired oranges, other fruits that are past their prime, and the leftovers from making pies and jellies in the summer. I have several mulberry trees and collect crabapples from trees near one of my municipal gardens, and I make jelly with these, as well as baking with the crabapples. As each fruit comes into season–raspberries, blackberries, peaches, plums–I bake or jelly with it, or save the less-than-perfect ones to dry for later use. Birds LOVE these fruit treats in mid-winter. And when I find peanut butter on sale and stand there trying to decide if my birds would prefer smooth or crunchy, I know I’m really in deep.
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