Dear Tweeters,

May Andrew Longtin enjoy continued success with his hand-feeding of chickadees! Would that my own experiments along those lines had been as successful...

In the 1970's I found a pamphlet published by a board of cooperative agricultural extension in New York State. It described how one could train backyard birds to eat out of one's hand, so I gave it a try.

Following the procedures in the pamphlet, I constructed a life-sized scarecrow, dressed in some old clothes of mine--blue jeans and red t-shirt, as I recall. Actually, it was not a scarecrow, but rather an attract-tit, to coin a word. In theory, the birds would find this figure of me standing in the back yard, get used to feeding on it, and then later on I would trade places with it. I would be mobbed by hungry birds!

I attached some plastic cups to the outstretched hands of the figure, and filled them with seed. I kept them full all winter, and had quite a few birds come to feed on "me." All winter long I put seed all over its head, too, which was adorned with a black and green ski-mask.

Unfortunately, the plastic cups full of birdseed got wet and stayed wet. After a few months I started seeing Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, and various sparrows reeling around the back yard, crashing into things. The seed in the cups had fermented, forming an intoxicant, mild by bootlegger standards, but quite potent for small passerines.

I took down the attract-tit, dismantled it, and put the old clothes and ski-mask through the laundry cycle. Then I put the clean clothes on and trudged through the snow to the back yard, holding my arms out at my sides. I covered myself with birdseed and waited for the inevitable swarm of friendly little songbirds.

I guess they were all hung over, because they stayed up in the trees the whole time. I went back in the house and made hot chocolate.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Bletsch



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