Danger In The Garden

I love my summer visitors to all the decorative birdhouses I have in the yard. The winter and year round residents don抰 seem to nest in the bird houses too much but rather in the trees. They do however, come down to the wooden bird feeders and garden birdbath fountain I keep ready for them. I find every one has their own personality with some being braver than others. The chickadees seem to be the first line of defense, they have a very specific warning call. If I am in the house and I hear it I go out expecting to chase the neighbor抯 cat away. Of course they yell at me sometimes if I get to close but mostly they put up with me.

In setting up my bird friendly garden I tried to think of all the obvious dangers to my visiting friends. The bird feeders are out in the open where the cats have no where to hide but close enough to the trees so that they can quickly flee if predatory birds show up.

The garden birdbath fountain is set up the same way as the wooden bird feeders with care to not give kitties a place to hide. It is hard to keep the bird feeders close enough to trees and yet out of the reach of hungry squirrels it抯 a bit of a juggling job.

The front windows seem to be the biggest problem. According to the experts birds can抰 recognize glass and fly toward the refection thinking it抯 real. The front windows get a couple each year mostly they just bang their heads, swear and fly off, though occasionally there is a fatality. Some say to paste the silhouettes of predators, but then they wouldn抰 be relaxed enough to eat at the bird feeders or play in the birdbath fountain so I hang wind chimes along the front and they avoid the windows. Remember to watch for various dangers when designing your visitor friendly garden.