Tag Archives: bird seeds

Bird Feeder Fail

31 Oct

Last week, I had this brilliant idea to DIY a bird feeder instead of buying one from the pet store. I had this sudden urge to train the freeloaders that come daily for their bird seeds to eat from a feeder. With my being in and out most time these days, it’s hard to feed them at the expected time.

There are days when the birds would come into the garden porch, looking in through the glass door for me, and expect me to serve them! Well, sometimes I do so but not always.

I googled up ideas and found the easiest contraption, using recycled things that I found in the kitchen. And voila! I have a bird feeder that I thought was brilliant. But the birds do not think so.

Several days have gone by, and they are still wary of the thing, thinking it’s some weird new garden ornament. But I have stopped feeding the birds to train them on this new arrangement, and the feeder remains in the garden under rain and shine. However, being the rainy season, when it rains, the bird feeder gets drenched by rainwater. Sigh.

The only animal not cautious of it is the garden squirrel! I have spotted it a few times, running toward the feeder and having a quick bite. Well, when choices are limited, hunger precedes caution.

After several days of rain, one part of the feeder came out, but I did not fix it. My bad, for the next thing I knew, the wet seeds started sprouting! Hahahaha. My goodness. This DIY bird feeder does not quite work during the rainy season, so I have to go back to the drawing board on it.

Sprouts growing from bird seeds!

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Feeding the Garden Friends

9 Aug

It has come to a point whereby the daily garden visitors expect food laid out for them. The doves, sparrows, squirrels, or rather, tree shrews wait on us to provide for them. So hubby bought birdseed from the online shopping site since we try not to go out so often. The birds love it.

Sometimes when we are slow to have the seeds out on time, we find the two regular doves wandering into the garden porch to remind us. There have been occasions when they would even saunter cooly into the house!

Sometimes they sunbathe and of course, eat.

The shrews are more fortunate as they have more choices. With the various fruits that we eat, they get to eat them too. We set the tray in one spot, and every morning I can see one or two bouncing over to check the offering.

Enjoying a sweet offering

We do not mind the animal demands as they have to eat as well. And when we keep them satisfied outside, they won’t venture inside to create problems for us.

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Our Garden

26 Mar

Our garden is a sanctuary of sorts for all the critters in the area. Birds flock to our place for bird seeds provided on a timely schedule, squirrels romp here hoping for the same fortune as the birds, and earthworms make a mess of the garden surface while having a galore underground. The smaller critters – the bees and caterpillars enjoy the nectar and leaves at their own pace without any disturbance. It is a very fertile and happy place.

Recently we spotted an injured squirrel from the kitchen window. Unfortunately, I was too slow with the phone to get a picture. The poor thing looked like it got scalded for its tail, and part of its face and body is missing some fur with the bare pink skin showing. The poor critter is constantly looking very frightened and wary of the surroundings and still surviving.

One day, hubby – out of pity – threw out a piece of bread for the injured squirrel to eat. It came around and sniffed at the bread, unsure what it was. It is evident bread is something that is not in the squirrel’s natural environment. It even sniffed at the surrounding plants, wondering if the bread fell off from one of the nearby potted plants.

We couldn’t wait for it to eat the offering and left for the office soon after. That night, when we got home, the bread is gone. I am assuming the squirrel ate it, and we have not seen it since. Hopefully, it gained some strength from the offered food and is recovering well. We have to keep a lookout for it to appear again.

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A Garden Party!

12 Feb

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year or the Lunar Year of the Metal Ox. A very muted occasion for us because our status remains under lockdown, with no place to go or family to visit. Honestly, it is no different from the past 12 months. There’s nothing to celebrate. Sniffles.

We did, however, made an effort to liven up our situation for the Reunion Dinner. Instead of having dinner at the kitchen counter like every other night, we chose to eat in the garden patio last night! And have a barbeque while we were at it. We even had some feathered guests joining our party, but they ate earlier than us because bird seeds didn’t need grilling.

The birdies having a feast on the newly painted wall!

I thought we had to take precautions against the evening mosquitoes but there were none thankfully. We set up the table plus a side table at the patio and cooked up an eight-item BBQ menu for the occasion.

Typical Reunion Dinners are either six or eight dishes to signify abundance, but since it’s just the two of us this year, the eight-item course is more than enough and equally meaningful. And even though the dinner was technically not a Reunion Dinner, we enjoyed the change in ambiance.

Not the typical and traditional menu, I labeled it as an eight treasure platter.
The colorful spread on our Barbecook grill

Both of us laughed about whether the dinner qualifies as a Reunion Dinner because, firstly, we are always together, and secondly, it’s more like a garden barbeque party. The lengthiest duration that we are separated so far this past month has been five minutes? Having long showers does not count, though. Whether it is indeed a Reunion Dinner or just a garden party, we need to inject variation and humor into our lives to keep sane. Let’s hope the current MCO status will revise for the better come 18 February.

Until then, steer the Ox by the horns towards having a happy and safe celebration during this Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai folks.

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Where’s Our Food?

9 Oct

We ran out of bird seeds and haven’t had the opportunity to swing by the pet shop to replenish. So the birds are not happy.

In the last two days, our daily visitors had nothing to eat and were disappointed. And curious at the same time, because they can see us but not their food. So much so, they even daringly came into the house as if to inquire about the sudden drop in service!

Hello! Anybody home? We’re hungry

I sat at my carving spot and managed to take a picture without alarming them. It would be utter chaos if they were spooked and attempted to fly off. Luckily the curtains were drawn, and two sauntered off soon after without any incident.

We have to buy the bird seeds soon.

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