No birds at the bird feeder. I’m assuming this is just because they do not know the seed is there yet.
On the other hand, they could have been intimidated by the fat man, the fat cat, and the barky dog holding vigil on the other side of the window. No one ever said birds are THAT dumb.
debit
Sprinkle some seed on the ground just below the feeder. They’ll find it.
cleek
our cats love to sit in our screened-in porch. it’s all the ‘outside’ they get.
the neighborhood birds have learned that cats can’t get through screens, and will sit in the bushes, taunting our poor agitated cats.
pity the poor cricket who makes it inside the screen, tho…
Bob K
Cavaliers!!!
Here is a tip that will make people think you are awesome. Wiki celebrities. Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson is simply doing God’s work. I can back it up with scripture.
http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?passage=Genesis+38:9-10
Litlebritdifrnt
As I said the other day John birds take their sweet time to become acquainted with a new feeder. Once they find it, FSM help you if you leave it empty for more than an hour or so.
WereBear
Do as a cat does: show only the eyes over the windowsill.
mr. whipple
Patience dood. Once they find it, you’ll be struggling to keep it filled.
Xenos
Just wait until the local bears find the bird feeder.
SWAT crash! nom nom nom.
Pigs & Spiders
I’m really looking forward to the epic “John vs. The Squirrels” threads we will be graced with in the coming months. I expect lots of cursing and comparing the squirrels to al Queda.
Seriously. Sitting on the edge of my seat here.
RSA
It always takes “our” birds a while to find out that we’ve refilled the feeders. And at some times of the year, they apparently just don’t care, with sustenance available elsewhere.
And it’s possible that, like your place, ours is less attractive to birds because of the cat sitting with a wide open mouth under one of the feeders, waiting.
Jack
How’s that lesser evil workingoutforyas? Did you really think historic reform really was?
http://www.correntewire.com/dear_ladies_why_dont_you_just_die_already
Rosalita
They take a few days to find it. And yes, they may be a bit skittish about the enthusiasts at the window. My guess is you will get Titmice and Chickadees first. Did you put out a seed blend? I have niger seed out so I get Goldfinches; they get really jumpy if I don’t keep a low profile while watching.
jeffreyw
Buddy was barkin from the front porch the other day at something, I looked out the window to see what he was worked up about. Three bunnies were playing in the front yard.
Rosalita
@Pigs & Spiders: LOL!
you’re right! and add to that that weeds that will sprout under the feeder…not the lawn!!!
Zuzu's Petals
I mentioned in an earlier thread that my son worked on the Deepwater Horizon for nearly five years.
It turns out he knew six of the missing men.
What a tragedy.
Chyron HR
@Jack:
PROTIP: Your inability to communicate in a coherent fashion does not reflect poorly on the President. No, not even if you’re “Ar-Peeing” as him.
Jack
@Chyron HR:
Huh?
You don’t know how to click links and read up on all the lies Obama told about health care?
You know, the ones BJers were so proud to shill, while punching away at hippie naysayers?
Bill E Pilgrim
It looks like the random word generator that produces B.O.B. posts is on the fritz.
Chyron HR
@Jack:
No, I clicked your little link and read though your whole incohrent “I AM BARACK NIGGOBAMA AND I HATE LADIES LOLZ” screed. Please try to make an actual point next time.
cleek
smells like troll pie in here
Jack
@Chyron HR:
What?
In twelve seconds time?
Shenanigans.
PS – I didn’t write it and it certainly wasn’t an attack on Obama’s race. It’s criticism of the lesser evilism so common to BJ during the run up to “historic health care reform.”
Talk about “epistemic closure.”
debit
@Chyron HR: Please refrain from quoting Jack. My sensibilities are a bit delicate this morning.
ETA: You do realize it doesn’t want discussion, right?
Rosalita
Hey Jack, GFY
mr. whipple
The other thing with bird feeders is that you don’t want to find yourself a victim of a bird feeder gap. Because those critters are smart, and they’ll go to the houses that have lots of feeders over a house that has one.
Next thing you know, you might have, say, 3 hummingbird feeders, 4 upside down finch feeders, a few standard pole feeders, several bird baths, a few suet feeders, a few sunflower tubes, etc etc. Don’t ask how I know this.
Punchy
Jay Culter has a seed addiction?
SGEW
This is an excellent title for a children’s book. I can see the cover already.
debit
@cleek: The secret ingredient is bile.
And now I have to go to work. Meh. Don’t wanna.
cleek
i think i’ll have me a slice!
@Jack:
in your world, how many votes did the public option have in the Senate ?
geg6
@Pigs & Spiders:
Ha! That was my thought exactly. Vicious little buggers, those squirrels.
Punchy
Wow. Our timid, normally-docile greyhounds would have been through said door and halfway to Russia chasing those things.
Humans have crack, ducats, and easy women to chase. Greys…….just rabbits. Hopelessly addicted to rabbits.
dmsilev
@Jack: I read the whole thing. It was eminently skimmable, so it didn’t take very long. My advice to the author would be to find an editor. Very poorly written, even by the dubious standards of the blogosphere.
dms
tesslibrarian
Some birds might be that dumb. The cardinal that keeps attacking our side view mirrors any time the car is parked is that dumb–though, to be fair, it’s been going on for years, so at this point he might just carrying on a family tradition.
Even with a cat in the window, once they know about the new food source, they won’t worry about feeding there. Most cats know to hold very still to watch prey. Whether Lily (or you) destroy Tunch’s video game is yet to be seen.
SGEW
@dmsilev: “Poorly written” is the dubious standard of the blogosphere.
RedKitten
I agree with the others — once the birds find them, you’ll have a devil of a time keeping up. We have chickadees, and have to fill our feeder daily to keep up with the fat little buggers.
I don’t mind, though. Chickadees are awesome.
Of course, we had to re-jigger our feeder setup after we were woken up at 3am to the sight and sound of a fat raccoon helping himself to the sunflower seeds.
sparky
@Jack: from one “troll” to another: smells like … epistemic closure! aka “i don’t want to discuss it” see, e.g. GOP and Iraq, circa 2005.
oh, and in pile on mode: how’s that let’s drill everywhere off the US coastline stuff sounding today?
apparently we failed Obama again.
Jack
@cleek:
I’m not promoting the public option. I’m criticizing the shilling and ranks closing done in the name of “reform.”
Right through the debate, I discussed this with other BJers – and we were repeatedly admonished to let “the adults” handle health care reform – that it would all turn out well, even if there had to be compromises.
I’m no naif. I don’t expect anything produced by Congress to be some sort of populist-socialist act of liberation.
But, the disconnect between the lies used to sell that boondoggle (“think of the poor people, hippies”) and the emerging data set is too large to go unnoticed – unless a person is studiously trying to avoid the facts.
The boondoggle will cost more than promised, will not tamp down costs, will create captive consumers and will still allow the bastards at WellPoint to continue practices that shillers declaimed, publically and with much teeth gnashing, would henceforth cease.
You were sold a bill of goods, and many of you went about savaging its critics on the basis of an unthinking lesser evilism.
Now that the facts are coming to light – that even the modest reforms are loopholed to death – I’m taking a moment of my day to point that out.
geg6
@cleek:
Oh, cleek, silly man! The entire Democratic caucus was all about the public option until that blackety black black black Manchurian candidate president forced them to back down on it.
Sheesh.
Chat Noir
Birds around here love black-oiled sunflower seeds. This spring, we seem to have many more red-winged blackbirds than in the past. In addition, we also have black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, American goldfinches, Northern cardinals (although they prefer to ground feed as do they mourning doves), various sparrows, and blue jays.
Another suggestion are suet cakes. The birds (and squirrels) love those.
Punchy
Is their a child inside? If so, maybe he’s a pedophile. Does the Pope know?
Or maybe it’s Pujols on a roid-rage.
I could do this all day.
bemused
@Xenos:
Friends have to take down their bird feeders every evening & put them back out in the morning because of a lurking nighttime bird seed loving bear after bear destroyed previous feeders.
PeakVT
Don’t worry, John, soon the birds and squirrels will be as bold as this fellow.
Jack
@sparky:
I remember this conversation throughout the fall and winter of 2009 and 2010.
I remember that we DFHs were told that it would all work out, that Obama would deliver something that at least helped the really poor, and the victims of “fraud” hunters.
Not even that is true.
twiffer
the only birds i seem to feed are the woodpeckers. one of the cons of having wooden shakes instead of siding, i supposed.
my current concern is how to encourage the local chipmunk population to keep their burrows in the surrounding woods and out of my damn lawn. don’t want to rid of them as a) chipmunks are cute; b) they feed the hawks and owls; and c) given the amount of beech and oaks i have, they sure as fuck aren’t going leave anyway. just want them to stick to the woods or even around the shrubbery.
Chyron HR
@sparky:
You forgot to channel Obama’s inner monologue revealing his secret hatred for the environment and all the fluffy animals that dwell within.
Bring your “A” game next time.
cleek
@sparky:
NPR reported this AM that zero gallons of oil were leaking out of the well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jack: Jack, are you aware that the provsions of the healthcare bill phase in over time?
Morbo
Tagline for Detroit Lions’ advertising this year: “We’re going to have at least one defensive player who doesn’t suck.”
Jack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Some do. But whole swaths of the legislation are in fact mere intentional templating – leaving the regulatory and rule making apparatuses to future administrations.
That’s the point made in the link initially offered.
Zach
I’m trying to call my Senators (NC, Hagan and Burr) about FinReg. Hagan’s voicemail is full, and Burr’s number is busy. Anyone know what’s going on?
WereBear
@twiffer: You could try piling bread loaf sized rocks in the woods, about waist high.
Chippies love those, and prefer their tunnels beneath and near such structures.
Zach
And Christ, it’s about midnight on a Friday night here. Do I have a life? Apparently not.
Jack
cleek,
I must have inadvertently flipped a moderation trigger (not sure why). My response to you is #35, and is awaiting moderation.
~ Jack
peach flavored shampoo
What’s a thread on birds and squirrels without a replay of this most awesomest picture evah?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jack:
I actually wish that the White House had pushed for a public option, and I believe that with some forceful support on the issue, they could have actually gotten it included and still had the votes. If they started with universal care and bargained from there, the public option might have seemed like the compromise, even to blue dogs.
Having said all that, the thing you posted is racist bullshit. Here are the parts that make that most clear:
“the Commander-In-Chief, talking to YOU. Aren’t you excited? Baby, I’m all about you. I swear those other women meant nothing to me!
“So, uh, I hear some of you fine ladies are feeling “periodically down” about my latest Health Whatever Bill.”
“This story should let you all know what’s going on in Big ‘Bama’s mind.”
“That’s on you, not me. I can’t help how irresistible I am, baby”.
geg6
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Exactly. Just love how all these so-called liberals and progressives who are just so upset over Obama just so happen to sound every racist dog whistle in the book.
Disgusting.
merrinc
As others have said, it will take the birds awhile to find your feeder – if you have the right kind of seed. The most common mistake many first timers make is putting a millet mix in a feeder when it’s mainly eaten by ground feeders like mourning doves. What kind of seed are you using?
Elsewhere in backyard birding news, there’s a pair of brown-headed nuthatches raising a brood in the house I put up for bluebirds. In many years of putting up nest boxes, this is the first time I’ve ever ended up with nuthatches. Very cool.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jack:
Making this different from other legislation in what way? You wanted a new health care system to spring forth fully formed like Athena from the forehead of Zeus? That isn’t how things work outside of Mt. Olympus.
Jack
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Huh?
That’s “racist” to you? A feminist takes Obama to task over seriously compromised legislation, and the loopholes it encodes, and you find “racism” in it?
Frank Rich, you are everywhere now…
Jack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Argue a point I haven’t made, if you must.
I’m not debating the realities of horse trading.
I’m going after the shilling, the lies told to defend that horse trading.
Not even the modest reforms do as promised.
danimal
Folks, you’re off script.
This is the time that the liberal and moderate Dems hold hands in unity singing Kum Ba Yah while the GOP explodes in intra-party wrath.
Epistemic closure, also.
geg6
@Jack:
The mere fact that you don’t see the inherent racism in that post says all I need to know about you.
Feminist, my ass. I’m a feminist from back in the bra burning days. I claim no sisterhood to PUMAs, Firebaggers, and racist assholes. And, at least in regard to the PUMAs, I realize that list may be somewhat redundant.
jeffreyw
At the feeder a few minutes ago.
Dog is My Co-Pilot
It will take the birds awhile to discover the feeders after you first put them out. I use sunflower chips. It is a little more expensive than some of the cheaper seed mixes, but the birds love it and there is less waste. Anything that falls on the ground, the birds pick up. I quit using the black oil sunflower because as the shells would drop on the ground, they would attract mice.
Jack
@geg6:
Fascinating.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jack:
No, I found racism in the racism.
Did you just not read my post? The quoted parts, that is.
Not only do I not have a problem with someone “taking Obama to task’, my post took Obama to task.
That’s not the part that’s racist. The racist parts are the parts that are racist, and I posted them right there for you to see.
cleek
it’s awesome how Obama gets blamed for a bill the Senate wrote. don’t blame the blue dogs or the way the Senate works. nope, blame Obama. but hey, i guess that’s what you gotta do, if you want to keep the PUMA spirit alive!
PU! MA! Spirit!
PU! MA! Spirit!
things would be so much different if we’d only listened to the PUMAs!
Linda Featheringill
Does anyone know anything about this bill?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/22/AR2010042205778.html?hpid=topnews
I wonder if it will do any good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jack: I addressed something you actually said. If it does not make the point you wanted to make, you should try rephrasing it.
LuciaMia
Thank goodness we don’t have (so far) the usual hormonal catbird attacking one of our windows. That is one nasty aggressive breed. I’ve had one follow me around the backyard and divebomb the dogs.
Chat Noir
@jeffreyw: Wow. That looks like my backyard.
Love all of your food and critter pix!
Jack
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Okay, Frank Rich. You guys are as bad as conservatives hunting socialist monsters under every bed.
I do love the irony of Anne Laurie’s latest post, all the same.
She attacks the same thing Madamab attacked. Gonna call her a racist for it, too?
Svensker
@Jack:
You have so much snark and bile dripping down the page that it’s hard to see the words. The point seems to be that Obama is a bum, but I didn’t feel like getting out the windshield wipers to find out why.
Svensker
@jeffreyw:
Oooooh, who’s the pretty brown guy with the jaunty tail?
Also, how do you get a cardinal to sit still while there are jays around? Maybe our jays are unusually juvenile delinquent bullies? One of our jays actually killed a mockingbird that had the gall to come to the feeder at the same time the jay was eating.
merrinc
@jeffreyw:
Gorgeous! Do you often get those five eating together on the ground? The red bellieds here usually swoop from the tree to the suet feeder and back and the bullying blue jays send everyone else scurrying when they land.
Litlebritdifrnt
@peach flavored shampoo:
That reminds me of when I used to feed the birds outside my office window at MHQ Pitreavie in Scotland. I hung out half coconuts for the Blue T*ts, and one day a Squirrel found it. It was hilarious at first he looked at it as if to say “that’s the biggest f**king nut I’ve ever seen!” then he chewed through the string to get in on the ground. THEN he wanted to take it home, so he tried stuffing it under one arm, no go, then the other, then he sort of tried rolling it with his nose, then his back legs, eventually he got it to the base of the tree and began trying to push it up the tree, first with the top of his head, then with his front legs while pushing up with his back, then tother way around. I didn’t get any work done for hours because I was laughing so much watching him. Bless his little cotton socks though he eventually got it up the tree and to his nest. He must have been exhausted.
ChockFullO'Nuts
Birds dumb? They have brains the size of a pistachio, and are regularly outsmarted and killed by animals who have brains the size of walnuts.
Small walnuts, actually.
These walnut sized brain animals can kill a bird even when the walnut brain animals’ owner has had its claws removed. Rather easily, really. Even when the walnut brain owner weighs 23 lbs and looks like an animated Macy’s Parade balloon and has a stomach dragging on the ground.
gwangung
Pacific Northwest Balloon Juicers:
Opening a sketch comedy show next week. Chock full of the same snark you come to BJ each and every day.
There’s a BJ discount if anyone’s interested….
Tattoosydney
Seeing as this is an open thread, and i have been staring at Evony boobs for a while now, two cute, male Italian wrestlers.
Safe for work, if work allows you to drool at shirtless pictures of hot, sweaty Italian men.
Folderol and Ephemera
I see that it’s going to be one of those mornings.
ChockFullO'Nuts
No matter how I parse that, I can’t make sense of it.
Who drools over hot sweaty men? Buzzards?
Litlebritdifrnt
@merrinc:
My Blue Jays do the same ther is a very loud “quark!” as a warning and all the other birds scatter while Mr. (or Mrs.) Blue Jay stuff their beaks and crops with peanuts and then leave. They do love their peanuts.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/MsNick40/BlueJay_filtered.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/MsNick40/January212007100_filtered.jpg
gwangung
@Folderol and Ephemera:
When is it ever NOT one of those mornings here?
And, yes, we do have shirtless men in our show. And lots of fights between women.
Svensker
@Litlebritdifrnt:
How the heck did he get it up the tree?
I once put a batch of powdered sugar butter cookies that had turned out badly (don’t ask) and one of the squirrels thought he’d hit nirvana. After he stuffed as many cookies into his cheeks as he could, he buried the rest for retrieval later, poor little bugger. I nearly died laughing, he looked so cute with powdered sugar all over his face and happy!
Tattoosydney
Gratuitous music link:
Zbigniew Preisner (Van den Budenmayer) – Concerto en Mi Mineu, Version de 1798, from “The Double Life of Veronique”.
Tattoosydney
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
There’ll be a few coming along soon, I suspect.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Svensker: To be honest I don’t remember exactly, I do remember though that at one point he was wearing the half coconut like a hat. I think he discovered that to be the most efficient method of getting it up the tree. The things you see when you don’t have a camera (this was almost 30 years ago, no cell phones!)
matoko_chan
here’s my aunt’s recipe for suet cakes.
1 to 2 lbs beef fat scraps…my aunt and uncle do their own beef, but you can usually get these for free from the butcher counter at your supermarket.
render the scraps into liquid by slow cooking
add 1-2 cups peanut butter
any combination of the following–
leftover random baked goods crumbled up
breakfast cereal
rolled oats
cooked rice
wheat bran
grain– local feed stores usually cater to birders now, an will let you buy small amounts.
spread wax paper in a 9×12 baking tin
fill with suet mixture and freeze
when frozen cut into squares that will fit your feeder
store extra squares in ziploc in freezer
their backyard mostly looks like an out-take from Hitchcock’s the Birds.
you can buy dried ears of corn at your local feed store and hang them up too…very entertaining for the King of the Cats to watch.
tesslibrarian
@LuciaMia: Our mockingbirds do that to Jack. He’s come inside before with little bald spots on top of his head.
Edit: our *cat* Jack.
RedKitten
Remember this?
And I can’t be the only woman who perked up considerably during this scene in Iron Man (no video, just a photo, sadly.)
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Tattoosydney:
Well, that is just downright heartwarming, really.
Welp, gotta go. I need to throw a few chickens in the car so I can pick up my prescriptions later.
geg6
@RedKitten:
No. No, you weren’t. At.All.
Mmmmmmmm, I loves me some RDJr.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@RedKitten:
Yeah, that’s endearing Krista. I prefer my partners to be showered and fresh-smelling, but hey, what the hell do I know?
I’m sure sweat and body odor are a turn on to people who walk upside down and eat Vegemite.
wrb
ot
but Mark Levin’s response to Manzi is truly delicious.
He defends himself by citing as fact things that aren’t true except within the bubble Manzi criticized Levin for inhabiting.
merrinc
@RedKitten:
You most definitely were not. Thanks for the image – just what I need to get the heart pumping.
Soprano2
If you have a squirrel problem skip all the intermediate “fixes” and go straight to the squirrel-resistant bird feeders (nothing is completely squirrel-proof, but some come close). I’ve found that the most effective feeders are the spring-loaded ones that close when too much weight gets on the perches. I got one from Wild Birds Unlimited that allows me to set the tension, which helps keep the grackles from eating all of the seed. We’ve battled squirrels at our bird feeders for years – just the other night my husband put thin sheet metal on the outside of my upside-down suet feeder that’s supposed to be squirrel-resistant because a squirrel had perched on the top of it and eaten away about 1/3 of one of the sides of the feeder! The feeder is made out of formed, recycled plastic, and still the little bugger ate it! They’re determined to eat that easy grub you’ve put out for them.
The battle to keep squirrels out of our attic culminated in having some electric wire on our house. LOL They’re cute when they’re outside, but they sure can be destructive.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Is that a veiled swipe at me, hubby dearest?
@Punchy: Bwahahahahahaha!
It’s nippy here. I like it. That is all.
Folderol and Ephemera
@wrb: OT cont., re: epistemic closure, etc.
Even Marc Ambinder is forced to publicly acknowledge it:
Ambinder speaks pretty honestly, sometimes.
matoko_chan
whenever I see a picture of Tunch I think of this Steven Vincent Benet story.
Once upon a time there were two brothers who lived in a lonely house in a very lonely part of Scotland. An old woman used to do the cooking, and there was no one else, unless we count her cat and their own dogs, within miles of them.
One autumn afternoon the elder of the two, whom we will call Elshender, said he would not go out – so the younger one, Fergus, went alone to follow the path where they had been shooting the day before, far across the mountains.
He meant to return home before the early sunset – however, he did not do so, and Elshender became very uneasy as he watched and waited in vain till long after their usual suppertime. At last Fergus returned, wet and exhausted, nor did he explain why he was so late.
But after supper when the two brothers were seated before the fire, on which the peat crackled cheerfully, the dogs lying at their feet, and the old woman’s black cat sitting gravely with half-shut eyes on the hearth between them, Fergus recovered himself and began to tell his adventures.
“You must be wondering,” said he, “what made me so late. I have had a very, very strange adventure to-day. I hardly know what to say about it. I went, as I told you I should, along our yesterday’s track. A mountain fog came on just as I was about to turn homewards, and I completely lost my way. I wandered about for a long time not knowing where I was, till at last I saw a light, and made for it, hoping to get help.
“As I came near it, it disappeared, and I found myself close to an old oak tree. I climbed into the branches the better to look for the light, and, behold! there it was right beneath me, inside the hollow trunk of the tree. I seemed to be looking down into a church, where a funeral was taking place. I heard singing, and saw a coffin surrounded by torches, all carried by–But I know you won’t believe me, Elshender, if I tell you!”
His brother eagerly begged him to go on, and threw a dry peat on the fire to encourage him. The dogs were sleeping quietly, but the cat was sitting up, and seemed to be listening just as carefully and cannily as Elshender himself. Both brothers, indeed, turned their eyes on the cat as Fergus took up his story.
“Yes,” he continued, “it is as true as I sit here. The coffin and the torches were both carried by CATS, and upon the coffin were marked a crown and a scepter!”
He got no farther, for the black cat started up, shrieking:–
“My stars! old Peter’s dead, and I’m the King o’ the Cats!”–Then rushed up the chimney, and was seen no more.
jeffreyw
Sorry, missed all the questions about the birds. I was in the kitchen making breakfast. The birds are ID’d in the tags. These are common at our feeder, the brown thrasher hardest to catch but he’s staying longer now. Blue jays and cardinals get along fine, though they do tend to segregate themselves. The red bellied woodpecker loves the suet feeder but is happy to scratch around in the dirt,
ET
You should at least have mockingbirds. Them birds is mean. I saw one “chase” a big ‘ole tom cat across a street and into a parking lot.
I cut a dead tree down that they liked to sit on and swear they sit on the handrail on my front steps or on the street sign and stare at the house glaring at me. Of course they could just be taunting the cat.
Tsulagi
You need my daughter’s help. She’s turned our place into a freaking bird zoo. Hummingbirds in holding patterns waiting for a slot at one of the three hummingbird feeders on the front of the house. A shitload of blue jays, robins, and assorted flying things use the other feeders. Funny during the winter to sometimes see squirrels hanging upside down to get to the seed in those. A neighbor’s cat sometimes will come over to sit on one of our cars watching the moving feast totally mesmerized.
Robins are that dumb. They rival teabaggers for stupidity. Now for the third year in a row we have a robin that will fly to one the shrubs outside our kitchen windows, sit there for a moment, then launch itself into one of the windows. Then fly away and return a minute later to do the same thing. And keep that up for HOURS. Annoying as hell.
Seems robins are very territorial especially around horny season for them. Dumbass sees his/her reflection in the window, thinks it’s another robin trying to get some on their turf, then attacks the window. You would think after a few hundred times smearing themselves on the window something would click, but no.
My little girl cracked me up the first year this started. She sees me in the kitchen getting really bugged at the dumbass robin, then puts on her most serious face telling me “Don’t shoot him, daddy. Promise me you won’t shoot him.” I shouldn’t have made that promise.
Jasper
Whoever suggested black oil sunflower sure has it right for this part of the country (E. TN foothills). I can’t think of a bird that comes to feeders that won’t eat them, and black oil is the favorite for many species because it’s small and easy for them to open.
The only reason I buy (cheap) millet mixes is if I want to attract doves and provide a ready meal for the area hawks.
Another variation on home made suet. I substitute lard for the suet – it’s just easier and also cheap.
http://audubon-omaha.org/bbbox/ljrecipe.htm
It’s soft, so I just pack it into the plastic packaging for commercial suet. Or you can drill a half dozen 1 inch or so holes in a small log suitable for hanging and stuff the holes with it.
Tattoosydney
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
It’s the physical reaction to the vegemite that does it.
ETA: Holy God. I had forgotten just how, um… gay that video was. Olivia Newton-John, you sexy sexpot you.
SGEW
Oh snap; Ta-Nehisi “Best Writer on the Internet” Coates just dropped a few thoughts on “epistemic closure,” riffing off that Millman piece from a while ago.
Read the whole thing, of course, but here’s his bottom line:
S. cerevisiae
Here’s a hint for those who have squirrels and other mammals getting into their bird feeders: powdered cayenne pepper. Mix it with your bird seed (carefully! don’t breathe it or rub your eyes!). Birds can’t taste it but you should see the squirrels react. They learn in a hurry to avoid that feeder.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Veiled?
How you?
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: That looks scrummy.
@Tattoosydney: Yeah, that’s what I thought. Holy crap. I’ve never seen that video before. Olivia is getting her freak on with the gay menz! I’m all right. Unlike FH#2, I can talk! How are you?
ChockFullO'Nuts
No doubt.
But I live here in a desert where in summer one only need stand outside for 3 minutes to be hot and sweaty. It’s about 600 degrees F in the sun. I think steel can be annealed without artificial heating, in the afternoons. So anyway, there I am dripping with sweat, and mind you, I have a flat stomach and a rather compact and elegant butt, according to at least one expert who has examined it … and I don’t really find myself all that attractive under those conditions.
But throw me in the pool and give me a glass of iced coffee and some shade and I make myself all tingly.
I guess I am just an outlier.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
I am well. It’s Friday night. We have Monday off for ANZAC Day. All is good with the world.
More Livvy. Mmmmm glittery.
Little Dreamer
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
I will admit, you do have an absolutely lovely tush!
OMG!
;)
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Little Dreamer:
I have to admit, you know that standard joke where somebody asks for a match, and you say, Yeah, my ass and your face?
Well, I never say that, because it just goes to their heads and makes them insufferable.
Heh.
Tattoosydney
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
Bug spray?
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: She’s the prototype for Kylie, isn’t she?
Paper Raincoats–the opening band for Vienna. This song, Brooklyn Blurs, was one of my faves.
jeffreyw
@asiangrrlMN: Uh, thanks?
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Tattoosydney:
Nah, just the natural response to my beautiful appearance, Tat. If you have this, then you know what I mean. Eh?
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Nice.
Bowie – Space Oddity.
Soprano2
@S. cerevisiae:
I tried that – I swear they ate more. The squirrels around my house are impervious to cayenne pepper, although your mileage may vary. I did breathe it in once, though, with very unfortunate results.
Tattoosydney
@matoko_chan:
That story reminded me of a Hans Christian Anderson story, which I had remembered as being about cats, but which is actually about three dogs – The Tinder Box, which on rereading is really quite an odd little tale.
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: Yes. It was a compliment. I would eat that every day.
@Tattoosydney: I’ve never seen that vid, either. I love me some Bowie. He’s scrummy as well. Not in this vid, though.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Miss Aretha Franklin.
Paul L.
Gross Indifference
Looks like ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said the same thing.
I trust John and the progressives here will give her the same amount of ridicule.
cliff
I still want a tunchcam looking over his shoulder at one of these: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=Droll%20Yankees&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=vid:1&sa=N&tab=wv
all squirrel infested bird people should consider one .. my fav is the flipper.
Svensker
@matoko_chan:
I LOVE that.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: I’m not a big fan of Miss Aretha, but that is a classic by her.
Vienna. Alex Wong. His part in this song is the best (near the end).
@cliff: I just want a TunchCam period. Twenty-four hours of Tunch (in) action!
Tattoosydney
@cliff:
Do want squirrel. Or an otter.
HeartlandLiberal
The birds have gotten so used to us sometimes they do not even startle as we stand inside the double french windows and watch them at the feeder, which is hanging of the deck rail only about five feet from the door to the small upper balcony.
We were at first worried this woodpecker was dead or sick, he just hung on the rail without moving for almost five minutes while I took his picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24897185@N08/4545582697/
Bill H
@Morbo:
Tagline for the Chargers, “We’re going to have at least one player without a DUI. We drafted him today.”
twiffer
@WereBear: thanks. sounds like excellent advice and something that i can make look nice too.
regarding squirrels & bird feeders: the squirrels ARE my bird feeders. chipmunks seem better able to avoid the hawks.
matoko_chan
This is Tunch too I thinks……he is like the Jungian Archetype of the cat world.
Matt M
Cole-bait: TNT just announced that they’re ordering a 3rd season of SOUTHLAND. 10 eps to air early next year.