Orinda Garden New Bird Feeder December 2008

During one of my more creative moments this summer I created an umbrella holder out of a pvc pipe. The purpose of this was to shade the table on our deck from the sun when the sun starts to go down in the evening. A stellar invention even if I say so myself. One small problem - the sun moves position at different times of the year, so it has absolutely no use whatsoever at the minute.

Whereas most people would give up by now and go and have a beer, I ventured to see this as an opportunity and came up with the idea that I could fashion a pole into a bird feeder holder. This would allow me to attract the local birds to me so I can see them out of the window (as well as going on these walks all over the place). Apparently you're not supposed to put a bird feeder in the open as the birds don't like it, preferring more seclusion as it gives them a sense of security. Well, thankfully our birds didn't read that book as they really don't seem to care where the food is so long as they can get to it. The photos below are of the visitors that I've managed to capture in the first week of my feeder's operation. The only bird that I've seen that I don't have yet is the male downy woodpecker. The female is captured below and she frequents the feeder, however, her male counterpart doesn't seem to have figured it out (which is why I don't have his photo). He's landed in all different places around the feeder, so I've had a good look at him, but he hasn't yet landed on the perch to feed.

Anyway, the birds below are:

Chestnut-Backed Chickadee
House Finch
Dark-Eyed Junko
Scrub Jay
Red-Breasted Nuthatch
Downy Woodpecker
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Pine Siskin
Lesser Goldfinch
Oak/Plain Titmouse

Not a bad list for the first week. I suspect these will be the usual suspects going forward, but there will probably be other visitors in different seasons.

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