Feeder

A couple of years ago, our daughter, Cheryl, gave Honey the bird feeder in the picture above.  It works remarkably well – the plate on top keeps the seeds in the bowl dry, even in the worst weather.

It took a while to catch on. 

This fall, the only customers were a pair of Cardinals that considered it their personal kitchen, but lately, they have been joined by a wide variety of birds.  In fact, for the last week or so – even before the hard freeze – the feeder has been busier than Black Friday at Wal-Mart.  I use a 16 ounce iced-tea glass to fill the bowl, and lately, I have been refilling it at least once a day.

We have fed finches, thrushes, titmice, some even smaller birds I can’t identify, and even one blue jay.  That jay – the biggest bird to use the feeder by far, and normally a pretty aggressive bird – is almost timid when he eats.  If any other bird flies in, he flies away.  When he does, the feeder reacts like a park swing when a big kid jumps off.

English sparrows are as common in Houston as mosquitoes, but we had never seen any here at the Boggy Thicket until last week.  Now it is common to see up to a dozen of them on the ground, grabbing up what the birds in the feeder have spilled.