Howdy Tweeters;
The recent storm taught me an interesting lesson about feeding birds
that I would like to share with you. Several years ago I quit
providing feeders because of warnings about spreading disease and
instead planted ?plants and trees to feed them naturally. However this
storm was fierce, dropping two feet of snow and coating everything with
an inch of ice. I could see the birds were frantic so I spread millet
seed in every bare place. Also I had a huge amount of grass seed
cleaned from grass being prepared for skep bee hives and I threw this
out over the top of the crusted snow. Birds flocked in by the hundreds
to gather it including Song and Golden-crowned sparrows, Dark-eyed
juncos, and several Horned larks. Where the snow had melted along the
edges of a near by swamp/pond there were two W. Meadowlarks and a
Bufflehead was diving in deeper water. A Kingfisher and a Red-breasted
sapsucker visited nearby trees . The small crab apples of two trees I
had planted attracted many Varied thrushes, Red-shafted flickers,
Golden-crowned sparrows and below them a flock of sixteen California
quail. The Granny Smith apples left on the tree attracted Song and G.C.
sparrows. They had hollowed out the apples and were climbing inside to
eat. This spring I plan to plant many more crab apple trees since two were
quickly depleted and continue harvesting grass seed when ripe.

Joy Markgraf
Husum WA
joy.markgraf at gmail.com