Dad's Bird Feeders
Dad's Bird Feeders
Dad loved birds and later built his own "squirrel-proof" feeders. We had as many as 20 cardinals at a time in the winter. He also made baskets for kidney suet, which attracted downy woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, and red belied woodpeckers. Starlings could destroy the suet in a short time so Dad fixed up a string of bells attached to a fish line which he could pull from indoors to scare off the scavengers. On occasion, Dad would see an indigo bunting, scarlet tanager, Baltimore oriole, towhee, cedar waxwing, and rose-breasted grosbeak passing through on the migration north. Watching the finches turn from drab brown to gold and black each spring was a delight for Dad. He even enjoyed getting the bird book out to identify various kinds of sparrows. And Dad especially enjoyed watching the wrens raising families in the three birdhouses he put out each spring. A good whistler, Dad recognized the songs of many of the birds and was able to imitate them perfectly.