We do get a few reports of squirrels eating Hot Meats but the success stories far out number them. Since the capsaicin’s effect is on the taste buds there will always be a few squirrels that will be able to tolerate the hot taste especially if they are very hungry.

Overall Cole’s Hot Meats is a great product that is very effective at stopping the squirrels from eating all of your bird seed and is, of course, very safe for the birds and the squirrels.

Richard Cole

Cole’s Wild Bird Products

The government recently started programs to spur the growth of alternative fuel sources. They offered a $1 tax credit to companies for each gallon of ethanol or bio-diesel they produce. The government has created a guaranteed market and a tax credit for growing corn for ethanol. Of course many farmers started growing corn instead of sunflower and other grain crops. About the same time Frito-Lay, a huge consumer of cooking oil, decided to switch from corn oil to sunflower oil. Suddenly there was more demand but a smaller supply of sunflower. As a result the price of sunflower climbed to record highs.

This same problem has affected the price of many food items. Beef is higher because cattle are fed corn on the feed lots and flour has more than doubled in cost because farmers are growing less wheat. The ripple effect is far reaching. The markets will adjust to balance the supply / demand problems but it will take time.

On the bright side, we recently noticed that Frito-Lay has changed the ingredient list on many products again. They now indicate their use of sunflower oil and/or corn oil. We suspect that some farmers will move back to sunflower production since the price is higher but only time will tell how much effect this will have on market prices.

The Bird Watcher

Happy Spring Bird Watchers!

We have really been enjoying the wonderful warm weather this week and have spent a lot of time outside, doing a little pruning and planting. The flowers are budding out everywhere and the yard is alive with birdsong - our Cardinals, Wrens and Towhees seem to be trying to out sing each other! We have Chickadees and Nuthatches already on nests, while our Bluebirds and Tufted Titmice can’t seem to decide which birdhouse they will use. We’ve spotted a few Tiger Swallowtail butterflies, and we’ve seen a few bats flying about in the early evening. It’s really such an exciting time of year! Spring migration is really starting to pick up. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, Gray Catbirds, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will be at your feeders any day now, so stock up on their favorites - sunflower, white millet, no-melt suet and nectar!

One of our favorite things about spring is Earth Day. Being in our business, we really do appreciate all things in nature: insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, flowers, trees and shrubs. They all are part of our great ecosystem and are all very important. We encourage you to celebrate Earth Day (April 22) by doing something Earth-friendly!

Plant a native tree or shrub that wildlife will use for food and shelter.

Take your family on a bird walk hosted by a local group such as the Atlanta Audubon Society (http://www.atlantaaudubon.org/aaswww/indexsupport/fieldtrips.htm).

You’ll be amazed at how many bird species you can see in one morning.

Put up a birdfeeder or birdhouse made from recycled plastic instead of wood; or volunteer to pick up trash at a neighborhood park or lake. Every little bit helps!

Stop by Bird Watcher Supply Co. soon and check out some of our new spring products:

Texas Butterflies - brighten your house or fence with beautiful acrylic decorative butterflies - available in two sizes and they don’t fade.

Wacky Wakers Bluebird Alarm Clock - awaken each morning to the sweet warble of an Eastern Bluebird.

Floating LED Lights - cute multi-colored flowers float in a fountain or birdbath - look magical at night!

Flameless LED Tea lights - safe to use around kids and pets.

Silly Saver Banks - kids will love these fun banks so much, they just might save some of their allowance - available in frog, dog, fish and horse styles

Happy Earth Day

and

Good Bird Watching!

Hi, Bird Watchers

Spring is just around the corner! The trees are starting to flower, daffodils are popping up and birds are starting to sing. It’s a great time to do a little spring cleaning - wash out dirty feeders and replace broken or dilapidated ones, put up new pole systems (to replace that old one that leans!) and get those birdhouses up and ready for the nesting season.
Almost every other customer has been talking about Bluebirds this week. Males and females are pairing up and checking out nest boxes now. The male picks a territory and claims it by perching on a suitable birdhouse and singing, hoping the female will pick it (and him). But ultimately, it is the female that picks where she will lay her eggs and raise their young.

Typically, bluebirds prefer bird houses on poles, in an open area away from trees, busy feeding stations and other nest boxes. If we have a mild March, they can start nesting any day now - so get busy putting up houses for them! You can also help them out by offering mealworms and other bluebird foods during the nesting season.

It is also Goldfinch season! Flocks are building in numbers and are eating about five pounds of Niger seed daily from our finch feeders, not to mention the all the sunflower meats they are eating also. Whoever coined the phrase “eat like a bird” obviously never had Goldfinches at their feeders! Soon the males will turn a vivid canary yellow. We are starting to see some with yellow spots as they start to molt into their brilliant breeding plumage.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will return to the Atlanta area towards the end of March, so make sure to get those feeders up if you haven’t left one out for the wintering hummingbirds. Julia Elliott and Karen Theodorou banded 20 wintering hummingbirds this season - 17 Rufous, 2 Calliope and 1 Black-chinned. They also re-captured 2 Rufous previously banded by Rusty Trump. Not a bad rookie year at all! If you would like to read more about Karen & Julia’s banding adventures you can visit their new web site http://thebirdnerd.home.comcast.net

We thank all of you that kept a feeder going this winter and especially those who reported hummers to us!

Bird Watcher Supply Co. always works hard to find the best products for our customers. Lately, we have had many requests for products made in the USA, and we have found some fantastic new items from three new vendors:

Overboard Art - resin-sculptured indoor/outdoor wall plaques, each a work of art. These numbered editions come with a certificate of authenticity and make wonderful gifts! Our favorite is the Pileated Woodpecker. It’s so life-like; I do a double-take every time I walk by it!

Lone Wolf - beautiful glazed ceramic hummingbird feeders bloom to life with red, garnet and violet hand painted flowers - available in three sizes and never leak!

Anthony Stoneware - pottery that is both ornamental and functional! Birdbaths, Chickadee feeders and birdhouses make up this unique handmade line. We really love the quality and attention to detail!

Stop by soon and let us help you get ready for spring and make sure to check out all our new products while you’re here.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day
&
good bird watching!

What a beautiful January we had with all the snow! The birds really flocked to the feeders during the bad weather. We counted over 40 Northern Cardinals one afternoon. We even saw some Fox Sparrows feasting on sunflower seed and white millet on our ground feeder alongside the Dark-Eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows. Fox Sparrows are large streaky, rufous-colored sparrows that are here in the winter. We rarely get to see them in our yard and they are really cool looking! We also saw lots of woodpeckers on the suet feeders - Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker!

February is National Wild Bird Feeding Month. It is also a great month for bird watching! Purple Martins start migrating back to Georgia, returning from their wintering grounds in South America; American Goldfinch flocks continue to build in numbers in our area; Eastern Bluebirds start checking out nest boxes for potential spring nest sites; and it’s time for the 11th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count, February 15th - 18th, 2008!

So, get those Purple Martin houses erected! Make sure your bluebird houses are clean and baffled, and stock up on mealworms, suet kibbles, suet pearls and Bluebird Nuggets (now available in Hot Pepper for those of you with pesky squirrels). Fill up your finch feeders, and get ready to count birds!

If you have never participated in a Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), you really should! You can join thousands of people throughout the U.S. and Canada, counting birds in your yard, a local park or a nearby wildlife refuge. Birdwatchers of all ages and skill levels are encouraged to participate. It’s a fun activity for school groups, scouts, and families! Your bird count data will contribute valuable information to science and conservation when you enter your tally online at www.birdcount.org. Last year, participants submitted over 80,000 checklists! Visit the online site before the count to print out a checklist for our area.

The Georgia Wildlife Federation welcomes you to count birds at the Mill Creek Nature Center (MCNC), behind our Buford Bird Watcher Supply Co. store on Saturday, February 16th, from 7 - 11 a.m. MCNC is not yet open to the public, so this is a special chance to visit the preserve and participate in the GBBC. No pre-registration is required, but participants must sign in and out with the coordinator onsite. Look for the green tent canopy and we hope to see you there! If you need directions or have any questions, contact the Buford BWS store at 770-945-9499, or contact Christina Marr at cmarr@gwf.org.

Don’t forget your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day! Bird Watcher has lots of unique gift ideas for that special someone - wind chimes, bird houses, jewelry, books, optics, gift cards and much more! Stop by soon or visit our online store at www.birdwatchersupply.com.

Happy Bird Watching!

Karen Theodorou

Although most of you are familiar with the Ruby-throated hummingbird, did you know that eleven other species have been documented in our state? These other hummingbird species include Rufous, Allen’s, Broad-tailed, Broad-billed, Anna’s, Calliope, Black-chinned, Magnificent, Green-violet ear, Buff-bellied and Green-breasted Mango. These birds breed in the western United States and some will winter in the southeast. We have more than 100 wintering hummingbirds reported statewide every year and that number is steadily increasing!

As part of our ongoing research of these special little birds, we encourage everyone to leave at least one hummingbird feeder out all winter. You will NOT prevent any Ruby-throats from migrating and can possibly attract and help out a wintering western species.

If you see ANY hummingbird between November 1^st and March 1^st, please report it as soon as possible to one of our stores. Two of our employees, Karen Theodorou and Julia Elliott, are federally licensed hummingbird banders. They place a tiny, numbered band on the hummingbird’s leg and collect important data such as species, sex, age, weight and physical condition. An added bonus, homeowners are photographed releasing the hummingbird after the banding process. Wouldn’t it be cool to hold a hummingbird?

Wintering hummingbirds often return to the same yards each year; one female Rufous returned to the same Roswell yard for six years in a row!

You can keep your nectar from freezing by hanging your feeder a few inches away from an outdoor floodlight or shop light with a 100-watt bulb. Nectar only freezes when temperatures dip into the upper 20’s.

Nectar lasts longer in winter months and usually only needs to be changed every week or so.

Good luck and keep those reports coming!

Hope you had a happy holiday season and got lots of great bird stuff! If you are like many of our customers, you got a great new bird feeder or birdhouse, but you have no way to mount it. If that is the case stop by one of our stores and let us help you figure out what kind of hanging arm or pole system you’ll need. We have lots of hardware to choose from. You can mount it on a deck, from a tree, on a yard arm or on a straight pole. We can also recommend a squirrel or a raccoon baffle if you need one!

Also, with the colder temperatures, don’t forget to add a heater to your bird bath. Bird bath heaters defrost the ice so your birds can continue to drink and bathe all winter. The heaters will also protect your bird bath from cracking as ice forms. Every January 1st, we like to start a few new bird lists. One is for the birds that we see in our yard, and another is for birds that we see when we do some birdwatching around the state. We are always very proud of our yard list. It’s quite rewarding to see so many species coming to the bird feeders, bird houses, birdbaths, fountains, trees and shrubs we’ve put in our yard to attract birds.

Our favorite yard birds for 2007 include migrants like Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Fox Sparrow, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Veery and several species of warblers, but we love our resident E. Bluebirds, Brown Thrashers, Tufted Titmice and Carolina Wrens too. It’s really too hard to pick a favorite.

It’s also a lot of fun to see how many species we can get on our state lists. We usually tally about 275 state birds for the year, if we can get to the coast a few times and put in a little work at some sod farms and sewage treatment plants ( both are great places to find shorebirds and waterfowl).

One of our good friends and a frequent photo contributor to our newsletter, Bob Zaremba of Marietta, has just broken the record for seeing the most bird species in a calendar year in Georgia. He recorded 331 state birds in 2007, beating out the old record of 323 that he and two others tallied several years ago. Bob has documented his birdwatching adventures on his website and has many excellent photos.

Check it out at http://www.georgia-birding.com/GA2007-yearlist.htm .

Congratulations, Bob!

Julia and Karen have been banding wintering hummingbirds all over north Georgia, from Locust Grove to Dillard! So far they have banded a Black-chinned, several Rufous and a Calliope Hummingbird. Please keep those feeders up and let us know if you see a hummingbird between November 1st and March 1st. We appreciate your help in documenting these amazing little birds!

Make sure to also keep your seed feeders and suet feeders full. Birds will really flock to them! Our Downy Woodpeckers and Yellow-rumped Warblers are squabbling over our suet log even as I’m typing this!

Bird Watcher has some great sale prices on overstocked Christmas items - stained glass, ornaments, figurines, holiday candy, Holiday Specs and more! Stop by soon, they’re going fast!

Have a very birdy New Year!

Hope you are having a wonderful fall season. We were so glad to finally get some rain last week! We actually recorded over an inch in our new rain gauge at the house. It is part of the new Conant Weather Station line we are now carrying at Bird Watcher - a beautiful collection of brass rain gauges and thermometers. Hopefully we will have some more rain soon as we desperately need it. We have even started collecting water from the shower in a bucket while the water heats up to use in our bird baths and potted plants. Every little bit helps!

Yank! Yank! Yank! This is shaping up to be an “invasion” year for Red-breasted Nuthatches at feeders in our area. We typically only see White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches in Georgia, but when the population numbers are up and the food sources are down in parts of Canada and the northeastern United States, certain species like Red-breasted Nuthatches will winter further south of their usual range.

Other “invasion” species include Pine Siskins, Purple Finches and Evening Grosbeaks. Keep an eye out this winter! We are keeping a good supply of Nutberry Suet Blend in our feeders and have attracted two Red-breasted Nuthatches so far. We also put out more White Millet during the fall and winter months to attract White-throated Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos and even the occasional flock of Wild Turkeys to our ground feeders.

By now most of the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have departed North Georgia, but we are starting to get some winter hummingbird reports. Our on-staff licensed hummingbird banders, Julia Elliott and Karen Theodorou, banded a beautiful adult female Rufous hummingbird in the Atlanta area last week and they still have a few other reported birds to check out.

If you see any hummingbirds at your feeders from November through early March please let us know! Twelve species of hummingbirds have been documented in Georgia during the fall or winter months. Many of these birds were at the homes of Bird Watcher customers, employees and even at our Roswell BWS store where a Black-chinned Hummingbird showed up in 1990-the first state record of this bird being in Georgia.

And just this past Monday, Oct. 29, another first state record bird was documented here in Georgia!

A Green-breasted Mango (a hummingbird typically found in Central America and Mexico) was banded in Dublin, Georgia by our good friend Bob Sargent of the Hummer/Bird Study Group.

You just never know where the next rare bird might turn up Maybe it will be at your feeder!

We are starting to stock up for Christmas at Bird Watcher and have several great new gift items this year - fun, soft, three-dimensional animal doorstops (kitties, frogs, squirrels and rabbits), beautiful kitchen towels, potholders, mugs, puzzles, doormats, and even chocolate-covered sunflower seeds - yum!

We also have new birdhouses, birdbaths, birdfeeders, and much, much more. Come by soon and see all the great new stuff!