There are many ways to bring birds to you if you enjoy listening to their relaxing calls and watching as they entertain you. First, do a little research. What birds are common to your area, and what do they eat? Once you know the answer to those questions, you might also want to find out what habitat they enjoy. A local pet store or feed store can supply you with seed, nuts, suet or all three. In some areas, fruit can be used to attract birds such as Orioles or Blue Jays. In climates too harsh for birds of that kind, suet and black oiled sunflower seed might be more appropriate for attracting Chickadees, Stellar's Jays, Grosbeaks and Red Winged Blackbirds and so much more.

We live in a very rural area of BC, where the climate is a little harder in the winter. Birds in our area require feeding year round to keep them coming, and once you have attracted them, it is important to keep up the feeding during the colder months. We attract many species, and each year add more to the group. We converted an old C Band satellite dish frame, using it as a base for hanging suet and seed houses from. A small amount of cooking oil around the bottom of the pipe keeps the squirrels from raiding the seed houses.

Another important thing to remember is that seed has to be kept dry. If it gets wet as a result of a bad storm, the best thing to do is empty the feeder out onto the ground around your feeding station. That will attract the smaller birds that prefer to avoid confrontation, and will more importantly avoid mold. Birds get very ill if they eat moldy food.

A helpful factor in attracting birds of all kinds is water. We use a tomato cage turned upside down with a large plastic garbage can lid on top. We fill that regularly with fresh warm water and the birds love to bathe. We also took great care when we landscaped to work with the area, cleaning it up rather than trying to overtake it with our own ideas. We left a wild area of scrub brush, and instead of landscaping it, we built trails around it, highlighting some of the natural beauty. We are fortunate to live in an are where there is an abundance of wild blueberries, wild strawberries, huckleberries, and wild raspberries. These also attract birds of all kinds.

We have an overhang to our roof that allows us to construct a shelf for seed right outside our kitchen window. It stays dry, and whenever I work in the kitchen now I get to watch my birds. It's one of my favorite places.

Of course in spring we have the usual ritual of placing the hummingbird feeders out. They are the true harbinger of spring for us. The first mix should be very sweet. It should be at least one third sugar, dissolved completely in the water of course. When you hang your feeder, be patient. It may take time for them to find you, but then word will get around. Keep the solution fresh, and decrease the sugar to 1/4 cup for the smaller feeder, and enjoy as each year they increase in number and become more and more tame as each generation of birds is born into this environment. We have lived in this house now seven years. I missed my birds when we moved here, but now I have them all back and more. When the hummingbirds come now, they fly to the window closest to where the feeders hung and hover outside looking in as if to tell us to get with it!

One thing we have noticed as our bird population increases is that it also attracts a variety of predators. We have watched Red tailed Hawks, Eagles, Falcons, and Owls hunt the birds that call our feeders home. With a little work and some basic food, we created a National Geographic environment.

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