It’s All About The Birds

Birds need three things to survive: Food, Water, Shelter.  We provide all of that here at the park.

This time of year we provide 3 different kinds of food.  A sunflower/millet mixture, a peanut butter mixture, and thistle.  Other times of year sugar water for hummingbirds will be offered too and when the weather gets warm, the peanut butter mixture will no longer be needed.

There are a lot of different peanut butter mixtures.  The one that Mark has been making for 30 years is very popular.

He melts 1 cup peanut butter and 1 cup lard in the microwave.

Mark prefers chunky peanut butter but the park has purchased creamy so it will have to do.

He then stirs in 4 cups of cornmeal.

That’s all!  The birds love it.  It smells a lot like peanut butter cookies.

Birds that are not seed eaters will eat the peanut butter.  It has a high fat content that is needed during the winter months when bugs are hard to find.

All the bird blinds have peanut butter logs and we also have a small feeding station set up by our RV.  This is the peanut butter log that Mark made 30 years ago from a Post Oak branch from our home in Elgin.  He drilled several holes all the way through and added a hook for hanging.

Here at the park we feed a mixture of black oil sunflower seeds and white millet.

Four scoops of sunflower seeds are mixed with one scoop of millet.  

This is a good balance for the types of birds we get here.  

For a more natural setting there are “bowls” of wood bark that the seed is put in. There are also some large flat rocks that we throw seeds on. 

The other food we’re feeding now is thistle.  No mixing needed.

All four bird blinds have water features where the birds can drink and bathe.

Shelter is provided by Mother Nature and is all over the park.  The bird blinds offer a nice assortment of trees and shrubs surrounding them for the birds to seek shelter after a bath or if any low-flying hawks happen by.

There are 2 different kinds of “bird feeding” stations.  Can you guess what they are?

One type of feeding station is just what I have described above.  The other type is a little different.

Have you guessed yet?  Sharp-shinned Hawks are bird eaters.  So, while the birds are eating their food, the Sharp Shinned Hawk flies through about once a day to catch his food.