Monday, March 30, 2009

Flowers Attract Songbirds

Did you know that planting certain types of flowers in your yard will attract songbirds? Now is the time to be thinking about buying new plants and where to put them. The following types of plants attract sparrows, finches, chickadees, tufted titmouse and red eyed vireo just to name a few. Your local nursery can help you find alpha wedding phlox, cloth of gold, summer sun heliopsis, belladonna delphinium, purple liatris (attracts butterflies too) and little miss muffet daisy (a favorite of purple finches). All these types of flowers are easy to care for and will come back year after year.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Today was a fairly nice day, nice enough to take pictures outside of some of the new birdhouses I made. The birds are back and checking out the yard. Today I was able to get a glimpse of a beautiful cardinal and figured this would be worth writing about.


Cardinals can be found in the eastern United States. The male cardinal has beautiful red feathers, a black throat and face mask and a head crest. The female is light brownish yellow with red tinted wings and tail. The female also has a head crest.


Most cardinals prefer bird feeders that are 4-6 feet high from the ground. They do not like hanging feeders. The more secure the bird feeder the better. Throwing birdseed on the ground is a good idea if you have cardinals around because they really enjoy ground feeding. What are some of their favorite types of birdseed? Black oil sunflower seeds, safflower seeds and striped sunflower seeds. They love to feed early in the morning and will be one of the last types of birds to leave the feeder in the evening. You may also attract Blue Jays, Rose Breasted Grosbeaks and Evening Grosbeaks with this type of seed.


Cardinals enjoy water. Setting up a bird bath in your yard is important to attracting them. Bird baths also help keeping other birds around. Since cardinals do not migrate, having plenty of water, the correct type of feeder and this birds favorite seeds, you may just find yourself with a cardinal family for many years to come.


The female nests two or three times a year in small trees, bushes and shrubs and lays three to four eggs. These eggs are light green/dull gray with reddish brown specks. She incubates them for approx. 13 days before they hatch. The male and female cardinal share the parental duties. Baby cardinals leave the nest approx. 11 days after they are hatched. By the time they leave the nest, they really do not look like a cardinal yet. They are still covered with gray downy feathers.

If you are lucky enough to watch a family of cardinals before the fledglings leave, then you are in for a treat. Cardinal parents will teach their young how to feed from bird feeders. What a great hobby to be a bird watcher. Not only are you able to watch, feed and learn about birds, but you can really appreciate nature and connect to it.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Project Return

We would like to take this time to let everyone know that we are proud to be a part of Project Return in Westport, CT. We have donated one of our birdhouses to their cause. This link will take you to their site. I think you will agree. http://projectreturnct.org/

Thursday, March 5, 2009

DID YOU KNOW

The Black-Capped Chickadee hides seeds and other food items for later recovery. Each item is placed in a different spot and a bird can remember thousands of hiding places.