Tweeters may not be the place to discuss bird-feeding matters, but this
question is a broad one, of more general interest, I think. I bought a
long tube thistle-seed feeder, filled it, and hung it up near our other
feeders. This food is supposed to attract Pine Siskins and various other
finches, but even as I hung it up I was thinking, "Yeah, you betcha. How
are the right birds supposed to find this thing?" Since we're away from
the house most of the day, I don't know what else may have happened when
we weren't around, but two evenings ago a pair of siskins appeared, hung
on the feeder and fed for a few minutes, and then flew off. I was quite
amazed, and my amazement raised the question in the header: How do birds
find these things? Here is this long plastic tube with some black stuff
inside. Birds have poor senses of smell, and I doubt the seed has much
odor anyway. Never in millions of years of evolution have birds had to
develop any ability to recognize food inside plastic tubes or anything
remotely similar. So what made these two siskins fly down and find the
food that they apparently like so well? Does the presence of other birds
feeding nearby induce passing birds to investigate? (I don't remember
there being any birds on the other feeders at the time.) Is anything known
about these matters?

The related question in my mind is about attracting other desirable birds
with other foods. Last year, I nailed up a couple of orange halves,
hoping to attract orioles or tanagers, but no one came along and the fruit
just dried up. Yet we live in an attractive, relatively wooded area on
the shore of a nice lake, and I'll bet there are some orioles and tanagers
about. What would draw their attention to our little nook? If I added
another feeder with worms or fruit, would they be more likely to notice?
And _why_ would they notice any of these things?

In a puzzled state of mind,

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 360-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 360-866-6794

Reunite Gondwana!