Quote:
Originally Posted by poohbear_nc
When I was in grad school, I lived in a tiny 3rd floor apartment with tiny windows - which had sliding screens & 2" wide window sills. I used to put out bird food - the small guys had no problems landing and eating - but the pigeons were far too big - I used to watch them bounce off the window screen and then fall off the sill - they never stopped trying to figure out how to land on a sill that was narrower than their feet!
The shy cardinals got quite used to my feeding station - there were several nesting pairs that would eat in turn - first Mr. Cardinal, then the Mrs. - always left one parent on the nest. I slept in one Saturday morning and was awakened by Mr. Cardinal pecking at the screen and screeching at me! I guess the babies were hungry! It was quite nice to have a bit of nature while living in the city.
|
Years ago my father build up his scaffolding in the yard so the gutter could be replaced and never took it down. My sister and I now use it to hang various feeders and nets with bird feed on it. The two "city pigeons" living in our yard have no interest in bird feed, but there is now a different breed pigeon couple who do like normal bird feed.
Underneath my big feeder I have a dish attached because the little birds are picky and drop whatever they don't like (or fling it into my sister's bedroom if she's got the window open). The pigeons can land on that dish, I've even seen them balancing one on each side, but they've now discovered they can easily reach the dish from another scaffolding bar and if they stretch they
can even reach the feeding holes.
In winter there is also a jay that frequents our feeders. He hates the little birds because when we put up nets with peanuts in shell they pick open the shells and take out the peanuts. The jay spends a lot of time making a hole in the net and picking out a peanut, opening it, putting one peanut on the scaffolding bar he's sitting on, taking out the second peanut and gets the first peanut to take with him. Because of the little birds he often finds empty or half empty shells, which he angrily flings away.