I PUT OUT my first chook feeder of the season round Thanksgiving or so every year and get the get together began. However there’s extra to feeding the birds than simply filling the feeders, like how you can preserve them secure within the age of elevated illness transmission, or how you can present important water within the coldest months, and naturally, much-needed techniques for outsmarting the squirrels.
Good chook feeding and extra bird-related knowledge was the subject of dialog I had in December 2022 with Julie Zickefoose, that I’m that includes in encore on the podcast.
I’m at all times delighted to speak to Julie Zickefoose, who’s a wildlife rehabilitator and artist and writer of varied books, together with a favourite of mine, “Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Onerous-Luck Jay” (affiliate hyperlink). Julie lives and gardens on an 80-acre wildlife sanctuary within the Appalachian foothills of Ohio.
Plus: Enter to win a replica of “Saving Jemima” by commenting within the field on the backside of the web page.
Learn alongside as you take heed to the Dec. 29, 2025 version of my public-radio present and podcast utilizing the participant under. You’ll be able to subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
bird-feeding finest practices, with julie zickefoose
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Margaret Roach: Hello, Julie, and thanks for being right here to information us this feeder season. I’ve bought lots of clients on the market.
Julie Zickefoose: Me too, me too.
Margaret: Yeah. “Saving Jemima” is such an important e book. Each time I see a blue jay, I consider you since I learn that e book.
Julie: Oh, thanks a lot, Margaret.
Margaret: Yeah. What was that? Possibly three, 4 years in the past possibly it got here out? Yeah.
Julie: It got here out in 2018.
Margaret: Oh, so virtually 5 years in the past. O.Okay., good. Additionally, earlier than we get began on the ideas and so forth, I used to be glad to see that, I believe it’s a 43-year-old journal, “Chicken Watcher’s Digest,” that you simply’ve lengthy contributed to, however that had ceased operation a few yr in the past, was shortly reincarnated as “BWD.” An ideal concept for presents if you already know chook watchers. So, inform us about that simply shortly.
Julie: Nicely, it’s been an all-consuming factor in my life to go from being a freelancer to being a type of de facto editor of a brand new journal [laughter] that’s so… it’s large and exquisite. It’s a print journal, in addition to on-line. And it’s now full-size format. The “Chicken Watcher’s Digest” was at all times a digest dimension, very small. And so now we have these great new horizons with with the ability to print photographs and have them seem because the photographer supposed.
Lovely layouts by our very proficient designer, Lisa Coe. Our editor, Jessica Vaughan, is doing a lovely job. Now we have Daybreak Hewitt, who edited the outdated publication, again on board. And so the three of us are of within the traces, Daybreak and Jessica and I, getting content material and ensuring it’s compelling and the best, most interesting we will get.
Margaret: Yeah. Plenty of nice contributors. Completely.
Julie: Sure, great contributors, together with many individuals we’ve used earlier than and a bunch of recent ones, too, who’re intrigued by the brand new format. I’m in control of getting the duvet artwork. For 44 years, we’re the one journal that has at all times featured work on the duvet.
Margaret: Oh.
Julie: Yeah. Lots of people don’t actually understand that, however if you happen to assume again, it’s all work. We don’t need to break that custom. I’m so excited to be in contact with fairly quite a lot of creative contacts who’re chomping on the bit to present us stunning issues, and up to now our covers have simply been jaw-dropping. Yeah, very, very enthusiastic about that.
Margaret: So, I’ll give the hyperlink with the transcript the place folks can study extra about BWD, however it’s fairly straightforward to seek out if you happen to put “BWD journal” right into a Google search.
So it’s bird-feeding season, and I believe in possibly the September-October one of many first new points, you probably did a bit about rethinking summer time chook feeding. There’s lots of rethinking happening, to not point out the worth of sunflower seeds [laughter].
Julie: Might I simply offer you my coronary heart assault du jour yesterday?
Margaret: Sure.
Julie: Once I went into the feed retailer for my common 50-pound bag of sunflower hearts. Now this can be a luxurious, I understand that.
Margaret: I simply did the identical factor. Uh-oh.
Julie: Yeah. I bought to know your worth there as a result of my worth in Ohio was $91, $91 up from $56, and I stood there and I stated to the particular person behind the desk, I stated, “You discovered my restrict. I’m not going to do that.”
Margaret: Wow, wow.
Julie: “I can’t do that.” I did a psychological guidelines of all of the birds coming into the sunflower-heart bounty, and I understand that every one of them have seed-cracking payments, all of them can deal with black oil sunflower, and so they’re simply going to should lump it.
Margaret: Proper. And it’s about… I’ve learn one factor that stated it was about 30 % the burden of the shells. So how a lot you’re saving by solely having edible and never shells, however it nonetheless doesn’t make up for the worth differential. I purchased it upfront this yr, which implies that you get a early shopping for low cost, however it nonetheless was, I need to say, excessive 70s about.
Julie: Oh yeah.
Margaret: As you stated, it had been mid-50s. And anyway, so O.Okay. However we’re loopy and we’re going to should then shift all the way down to the common stuff. And that’s all good.
Nevertheless it’s extra difficult than it was on many ranges. I don’t know the place we need to begin, however we’ve learn a lot about illness transmission and so forth, maintaining feeders clear, every kind of… being a accountable chook feeder. So possibly we discuss a bit bit,… are you not feeding in summer time? I don’t feed in summer time as a result of I stay in a black bear space and so they simply come proper into the yard and-
Julie: Oh, gotcha. Yeah. The black bears have actually solved that drawback for lots of New Englanders and North Carolinians and down the coast, too. Yeah. We don’t have black bears right here in Ohio but, however I’ve give up summer time feeding as a result of I lastly made the connection that the hordes of chipmunks and grey squirrels that destroy my backyard and eat my hibiscus, and so forth., and so forth., have been proliferating underneath my feeding program. And I stated, why? And to not point out rabbits, who completely love to scrub up seed underneath the feeder.
And I stated, why am I doing this? Why am I feeding mass numbers of mammals, after which preventing all of them summer time in my gardens?
And the opposite factor that was taking place is I had home sparrows coming from a farm a few mile and a half away and gorging on peanuts, and feeding them to brood after brood of younger, which they’d then carry to the feeder and eat the woodpecker peanuts. So I used to be like, wow, I’m having a web unfavorable impression on ecology in my backyard. (Above, a squirrel at Margaret’s.)
Margaret: You’re doing rodents and different undesirable, furry little creatures. And also you’re additionally fostering extra home sparrows [laughter].
Julie: Proper, precisely. And what’s the return? Nicely, not likely that top sufficient to justify doing these issues. So I give up, and it was truly so peaceable. It was not having to go service the feeders. Now, I did preserve my chook tub getting into my WarblerFall chook fountain, and that was an absolute pleasure to see birds are available in and bathe and drink. However they don’t actually need meals in the summertime. And so I discontinued it.
Margaret: And theoretically, if one has a backyard—and also you’re in a really wealthy pure space, like a protect virtually and a sanctuary—and if one has supplied with the best plantings and so forth, and as you say, water, and we will discuss extra about water in a minute.
So the opposite factor is that at any time when we feed, it looks as if the difficulty of sick birds and transmission of illness… and has that figured into atother occasions of yr, even if you end up feeding, use of various feeders or completely different protocols or how are you coping with it? Inform us about home finch illness and the attention illness and so forth.
Julie: Yeah. I uncared for to say that the opposite motive I finished feeding in the summertime is the ailments proliferate so readily. And when home finches are elevating broods of younger and bringing them in, they’re the foremost illness elements in my space and elsewhere, as a result of they’ve low genetic resistance to illness, being genetically inbred from a small introduction in in regards to the Forties on the East Coast. A launch of the birds at JFK airport prompted the founder impact in these birds. All of them radiated out from possibly a pair hundred birds in that one launch. And so we didn’t have home finches east of the Mississippi earlier than that occasion. [Below, a male house finch; Wikipedia photo by John Benson.]
Margaret: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Julie: Isn’t that loopy?
Margaret: That’s loopy. That’s fast. That was fast.
Julie: They’ve been a part of the avifauna for therefore lengthy. However get this, I grew up in Virginia, and once I went north to high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I noticed these little rosy birds singing round city, and I didn’t know the music and I didn’t know what they have been and so they weren’t in my “Golden Subject Information.” So I needed to ask round and I used to be informed they have been home finches after which informed the story of how they bought there. So that they’ve unfold like wildfire up and down the East Coast, after which they’ve additionally unfold west to the Mississippi and so they’ve truly met the western populations there.
And in about 1991 I consider they contracted a rooster illness known as Mycoplasma gallisepticum. And that occurred within the DC space. That’s when the primary sick goldfinches began exhibiting up. And so they then carried that illness in all places. And now there’s most likely 35 species of different wild birds which can be prone to Mycoplasma, which is home finch illness. It causes conjunctivitis and huge swelling of the attention membrane in order that the birds change into blinded, and it’s a nasty illness. And most of us who feed have seen these birds huddled on the bottom, blinded, unable to see and stated, “Oh gosh, poor factor.” However that needs to be a sign flag to us that we’re introducing that illness into our yards by feeding.
Margaret: Nicely, and when you consider it, if you consider a feeder, lots of feeders, what’s it? It’s a collection of little ports [laughter] that I can perch on and stick my head into identical to the earlier buyer did, and over and over and over. So if somebody with the illness sticks its head into the port after which I come there and do the identical factor, properly, there we go. Proper?
Julie: Sure. Home finches take it one higher. They’re evolving with the illness or evolving resistance to it such that it doesn’t are likely to kill them anymore. However they’ve additionally developed a behavioral resistance to it, in that they’ve discovered to rub their eyes on perches and feeder ports to maintain them open…
Margaret: Oh boy.
Julie: …in order that they will see. So, the dots that I linked within the winter of 2020 and ’21 have been that my tube feeders, which I had damaged out after most likely a decade of not utilizing them for that reason. I broke out my tube feeders as a result of we had this super-wet winter and I simply couldn’t preserve the seed dry on the platform feeders. And my tube feeders have been truly performing because the illness transmission station.
Margaret: Just like the hub. Proper, proper.
Julie: It was the hub [laughter]. If I might see a radioactive map of the feeders with the germs, I started to take a look at my feeders that approach.
Margaret: So now, as an alternative of tube feeders, are you utilizing domed trays, type of floating trays with a dome/baffle-y form of factor over it? Is that what you’re utilizing? [Platform feeder under domeat Julie’s, above, hosting a blue jay.]
Julie: Sure. I’m utilizing a bit recycled plastic sq. possibly the dimensions of a brownie pan. I’ve purchased a wide range of plastic domes, and I droop these over all of my feeders. And it’s a little bit of a ache as a result of droppings gather amazingly quick on the domes, however that tells me what could be falling into the meals, if the domes weren’t there. So I principally simply take the domes down, run them underneath the tap with the outside hose faucet, and put them again. And I’m a believer as a result of I had 19 goldfinches in my hospital final winter, or two winters in the past once I was utilizing tube feeders. I switched to trays with plastic domes and likewise feeders of wire mesh that don’t have ports, however simply emit the seed in order that the birds can decide it from the tube.
Margaret: Proper. It’s like a vertical cylinder that the seed goes in and so they pull it out via the little hardware-cloth openings, so to talk.
Julie: Precisely. So, no one sticks their head in a port. They simply take the seed and go. So these are the 2 varieties of feeders that I exploit now. And down from 20 birds in my chook hospital—I’m a wildlife rehabber—final winter within the winter of ’21-22, I had one.
Margaret: That’s nice.
Julie: Yeah. It’s admittedly a small pattern dimension, and I can’t say with certainty that it’s the tube feeders, however I’ve an actual sturdy feeling that there’s a connection there. [Above, a goldfinch at Julie’s “hospital” with Mycoplasma infection.]
Margaret: So one other factor that I wish to feed within the winter—and we’ve been having actually aberrant heat climate. I wakened this morning and it was 55 levels; it needs to be 25 or one thing.
Julie: 60 right here.
Margaret: Yeah. So, it’s simply insanity. So I’ve not been placing out suet but, as a result of I often wish to put that out when it’s persistently chilly. However that’s simply my factor. However I noticed in your, I overlook the place, your web site or someplace, I noticed an exquisite tip of a loopy suet feeder that you’ve that appears like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s not a dangling little sq. basket factor.
Julie: Proper.
Margaret: How did you uncover that?
Julie: It’s completely great. This was one of many pretty issues that got here via the “Chicken Watcher’s Digest” workplace years in the past, from a feeder producer known as Lifelong positioned in Ohio [photo, top of page]. Pretty man named Hyperlink Llewellyn makes these feeders. If I can describe it, and also you’ll have photographs.
Margaret: Sure, sure, sure.
Julie: If I can describe it, it’s principally two perforated metallic plates that seem like they’re simply drilled with rows of holes. They appear truly precisely like sapsucker holes within the aspect of a tree. So these two aluminum plates slide right into a metallic body and the entire thing is secured and put along with bolts. And also you dangle this factor up, you place one-inch slices of uncooked suet in it. You would additionally put truffles in it if you happen to needed. And also you tighten down the bolts and even raccoons can’t get to the suet.
Margaret: Proper.
Julie: So it’s a raccoon-proof suet feeder. They in a short time give up attempting. So that you don’t have to hold it on a baffle pole or something like that. And the woodpeckers adore it. It’s actually a bird-specific feeder as a result of nothing else however one thing with a pointy pointy beak can entry the meals.
Margaret: Proper, precisely. It’s rather well armored, that’s for positive within the photos.
Julie: Sure, sure.
Margaret: And I believe one of many issues I believe is that you simply talked about your WarblerFall, and I’ll give the hyperlink to that too, as a result of that’s type of a bit course, form of like a how-to instructing factor, plus all the data that you must do it your self, to create this factor that you simply name the WarblerFall. And it’s form of a product that you simply’re promoting, not the factor, however the instruction, proper?
Julie: Right.
Margaret: And it’s nice. I imply to simply watch the birds. Nevertheless it’s not a winter factor as a result of it’s a bit waterfall, as you name it, the WarblerFall, dish water backyard form of factor with stones and every kind of goodies.
However within the winter, water is crucial, and but it’s tougher to supply. How do you present water within the winter the place you might be? I’ve two in-ground water gardens, and for the advantage of the overwintering amphibians within the water, I preserve holes within the ice clearly, as a result of in any other case they’d suffocate. So, the birds use that. However what do you do?
Julie: Nicely, what I do is I went out and purchased a heated pet dish at a Tractor Provide the feed retailer. It’s the form of factor that folks use for his or her canine in winter in the event that they preserve their canine outdoors. And it’s not pretty [laughter], however it holds a few gallon of water. I throw a brick in it, after which I prime that with flat stones and the birds can solely drink across the edges. And the rationale I do that’s as a result of mourning doves like to make use of chook baths as bogs, as everyone knows. And they’re going to sit on the rim with their tails pointing in and simply poop into the bowl all day lengthy. And it’s very annoying. I don’t know why they do it.
Margaret: To not point out unhealthy for the opposite birds. In order that’s not good.
Julie: Though doves as a rule are fairly clear so far as illness. So I try this. I principally cowl all however little cracks across the edges with flat stones. After which in the event that they poop on the stones, no large deal as a result of they’re above the water floor. In order that’s what I do, and I plug that right into a GFCI-protected outlet. And that will get me via the winter. The birds recognize it a lot. They’re unable to wash. And that’s factor, as a result of bathing in super-cold climate is a nasty concept whether or not they comprehend it or not. So, that’s how I do it. After which as quickly as spring comes, I get away my WarblerFall, which is my pleasure and pleasure. My little invention.
Margaret: Proper, proper. Nevertheless it’s ingenious, as a result of it’s deceptively easy. It’s stunning, however it’s so easy and you are able to do it your self; you may assemble it your self. And also you’ve form of discovered all of the engineering particulars in order that it actually works, versus improv-ing and have it not be actually suited to the birds.
Julie: Proper. And if you happen to’re curious, WarblerFall.com has all the things you want.
Margaret: O.Okay., good, good, good. Have you ever had any form of wild and loopy birds at your feeders or in your backyard both recently, this feeding season, or this previous gardening season? As a result of what I like in regards to the winter is the type of woodpecker, which is why I like suet. The woodpeckers are simply… they’re charismatic birds for me. They’re simply characters. They’re actual characters. So I take pleasure in seeing extra of them up shut. They’re at all times right here, however they’re-
Julie: Agreed.
Margaret: Yeah. I like that.
Julie: I like woodpeckers. That’s why I feed peanuts in a cylindrical tube feeder, or a mesh feeder principally, that lets them take the peanuts via the mesh. I’ve to have my peanuts. I truly drive an hour and a half to a retailer to get my uncooked peanut halves.
Margaret: Wow.
Julie: Yeah. It’s robust round right here. It’s exhausting to get what you need. And naturally you don’t need to ship a 50-pound bag of peanuts.
Margaret: Proper.
Julie: So, I’ve had… the mix of getting a operating water fountain for the birds and feeders is a strong one, as a result of the feeder birds type of entice in, you already know, different birds say “One thing’s happening in that yard.” They hear the trickling water and so they’re drawn in a magnet. So I’ve had simply an array of… I imply, it was loopy. This fall earlier than I dismantled the WarblerFall in October… I truly dismantled it in mid-November. I had a parade of ruby-crowned kinglets bathing on this factor, which I by no means knew they bathed.
Margaret: They’re so little.
Julie: I do know. And it was fabulous. After which I had golden-crowned kinglets bathing in it. So any chook tub that will get in golden-crowned, ruby-crowned kinglets, is a strong one. Additionally, warblers of each stripe, Cape Might, Tennessee, bay-breasted, blackpoll, prairie, black-throated blue. So I assume it’s unlocked a world for me of drawing in forest birds that will not usually come proper into my window.
Margaret: Usually you’d see them in your binoculars up on the forest edge or once you’re “chook watching” form of a factor extra usually than proper there in entrance of you.
Julie: Proper.
Margaret: Yeah. On the deck or no matter.
Julie: That’s the ticket. Yeah, precisely. That’s the ticket. My sister put up a WarblerFall on her deck in Massachusetts, and inside days, had a male rose-breasted grosbeak come down and bathe whereas they have been sitting 3 ft away on their chairs. And she or he was like, “This factor works.” [Laughter.]
Margaret: Yeah. That’s fairly humorous. And I used to be simply going to say, one of many oddest issues for me, and this can be a quite common chook, a cardinal. He, we’re not on a first-name foundation, however we all know one another fairly properly by now, he’s starting his third consecutive season of defending his territory.
And once I say that: All yr spherical, not simply in breeding season, he circumnavigates my home. I’ve large home windows all the way in which round, and he goes from window to window, relying on the sunshine, the reflection at completely different occasions of day, and bangs on the home windows, due to course he sees “the opposite male cardinal” who he desires to eliminate. And he additionally makes use of the motive force’s aspect rear view mirror. I used to be going to say reverse mirror, however that’s not what I meant. rear view mirror [laughter]. And it’s hilarious. And it’s like that is… I assume it’s the identical particular person as a result of the habits is equivalent and he does all of it yr spherical, which is so odd. [Above, male cardinal; photo from Wikipedia by Rhododendrites.]
Julie: Sure. I’ve had that at my home as properly. I had a deranged cardinal. And actually, I consider these birds as birds with dangerous circuitry. They get an concept of their head and nothing will cease them. I’ve an expensive pal, an artist pal, named Larry Barth in western Pennsylvania, who had a feminine cardinal try this round his home for six consecutive years.
Margaret: Wow. O.Okay. Nicely, I’ll inform my man that the world report he’s taking pictures for is six years then, as a result of he’s bought three extra years to go.
Julie: You should be an early riser to not be too disturbed by it. I hate that.
Margaret: Yeah. No, it’s attention-grabbing. I simply attempt to go together with it and I simply attempt to go together with it. I imply, what are you going to do? Cowl each window downstairs with fabric? No matter. I simply let it go. Let it go. Let it go.
Julie: No, you may’t.
Margaret: Yeah. Received to be a bit zen with a few of these issues [laughter]. So, another sightings you need to inform us about within the final minute or so? Some other goodies?
Julie: Let me take into consideration this. Goodies. Nicely, I’ve deer consuming all the things in my yard for the primary time in 30 years. So, I’m in a bit little bit of a gardener’s fetal place proper now [laughter].
Margaret: Proper, proper.
Julie: Yeah. I don’t know what it’s. Possibly it’s all of the unique clearing I’ve finished. I’ve taken down all of the honeysuckle and I believe they’re hanging again. So, it’s not a constructive factor, however I’m attempting to determine how I’m going to backyard subsequent season with that happening. Yeah.
Margaret: I’m a fence believer and clearly it’s exhausting to have a fence on an 80-acre property, clearly, however creating some form of a barrier or some form of a zone that’s your zone. It’s difficult, however they’re unattainable.
Julie: They’re unattainable. Sure, they’re. I put out 28 pumpkins that I had grown, little white pumpkins, like large white pumpkins truly. They ate each one in every of them [laughter]. They have been in ornamental bundles round my yard on the masonry and all the things, and so they simply saved disappearing. So I put out a recreation digicam and positive sufficient, it was three deer simply consuming all of them.
Margaret: Yeah. Nicely, Julie, I’m glad at all times to talk to you and thanks for some chook feeding recommendation. And I hope I’ll discuss to you quickly.
Julie: Thanks a lot, Margaret. This has been nice enjoyable.
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MY WEEKLY public-radio present, rated a “top-5 backyard podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper within the UK, started its thirteenth yr in March 2022. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station within the nation. Pay attention domestically within the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Jap, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Dec. 12, 2022 present utilizing the participant close to the highest of this transcript. You’ll be able to subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
