For the Birds

To get the new year started off right, my husband and I took a trip to Granby Country Grain to pick out a new birdfeeder for our wild birds. We had previously been feeding the chickadees and woodpeckers and titmice and juncos and cardinals with an inexpensive Kaytee Songbird Bird Seed Bell from the local grocery, and they enjoyed it immensely. However, so did the squirrels -- one of which actually busted the frame of our most recent bell and absconded with it -- down the stairs of the deck and almost all the way to the tree line! Squirrels are tricky little devils.

So we went to get a birdfeeder. And we didn't find just one -- we found at least thirty. As you can see from previous pictures in a previous post, Granby Country Grain has quite a variety of feeders -- as well as birdhouses, squirrel feeders, and seed and grain. Enough to make the decision a bit difficult. There were tube feeders and cedar feeders and mesh feeders and metal feeders and plastic feeders and house-shaped feeders and squirrel-proof feeders and platform feeders. We hemmed. We hawed. We considered. And we consulted. Finally we selected a feeder with a squirrel baffle and a weight lever so that any bird or creature too heavy would shut off the supply of food. We felt very clever.

Next, we had to pick out the feed we wanted to supply. This part was easier. I had scoped out the food in a previous visit and knew what I wanted -- the Granby Mix. The Granby Mix, we were told by the cashier, is a bird seed mix created through a customer survey -- the store managers asked their customers what feeds worked well and then created a special seed mix for the local birds. We bought 7 pounds.

And now we wait for the birds to arrive. The change was a bit shocking for them, but slowly they are starting to figure out this new contraption, and they flit one at a time to the feeder to grab a sunflower or millet seed. Any day now I expect a veritable cloud of birds to descend upon our tiny little deck, bullying their way to the feeder, which is filled with their favourite treats.