Hello Ray and Tweeters,
The birders who are feeding starkly unshelled Sunflower seeds is (I ask for the reason) was there have rats in there yard and using the tubfeeder and unshelled Sunflowers there are no droppings.The Tahoma Audubon here in Tacoma feeds only unshelled Sunflowers there are no shells on the ground at all.
Cheers Ruth Sullivan
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott R a y
To: Tweeters
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] unshelled sunflower seeds


Hi Dennis and everyone,

In the case of seeds being shelled or unshelled, the word "shell" is a verb. Thus, "shelled" sunflower seeds have no shells.

Do a google image search on "shelled" and another on "unshelled" and you will see that the consensus there appears to be that shelled seeds have no shells, and unshelled seeds have shells.

Similarly, "shucked" corn has had the shucks removed. Corn grows in the field, "unshucked."
The same holds true for "husked" versus "unhusked" corn.

Cored apples have no cores.
Pealed apples have no peals.
Pitted cherries and olives have no pits.
Skinned knees have no skin. Ok, that's enough, already!


Therefore, shelled sunflower seeds have no shells. :)


Scott


On Feb 1, 2008 9:12 AM, Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson at comcast.net> wrote:

In discussion with my wife, I recalled why we tried unshelled (I'm defining "shelled" as with shells) sunflower seeds and then stopped using them. All through the winter chickadees and nuthatches gather sunflower seeds (with shells) to cache them, but they apparently won't do that with the unshelled ones, at least that was the behavior of our birds, and their visits to the feeders diminished perceptibly when we started using them in the feeders. So we went back to shelled seeds, even though it was great for a while not having the ground littered with sunflower-seed shells.


The only way I would use them now is for House Finches and the other birds that would eat them on the spot, but I'd have to find a feeder that the House Finches can't get into for the seeds with shells on them for the cacheing birds.


-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net







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--
Scott R a y
Aflac District Coordinator
Yakima, WA
mryakima at gmail dot com


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