Tag Archives: cardinal

The New View from Our Catio

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After I threw out our last bird feeder because it attracted a rat, we missed our visit from a couple of cardinals that chose to grace us with their presence a few times a day. I did some research on feeding birds without feeding rats and came up with a couple of solutions.

First, I learned there are a couple of bird seeds that rats don’t like. Not many, but one of them, Safflower seeds, is a favorite of cardinals. The other is nyjer seeds, which is a favorite of finches and other small songbirds.

I ordered the seeds as well as a squirrel resistant bird feeder and a stand for it. My wife and I like squirrels and didn’t want to lock them out, but it needed to be done.

We then decided to buy a separate squirrel feeder that holds peanuts. Even though rats will eat peanuts in the shell, it’s not their favorite and I read that if you kept it above four feet it would help keep them at bay. Since rats can climb, I’m not sure why four feet would matter unless they can’t smell that high.

It took a while for the squirrels to notice the feeder. I put a trail of peanuts hoping one would be smart enough to follow it. Once one did find the feeder, he or she emptied it almost instantly.

In the last week, I have gone through two and a half bags of peanuts and a half a bag of pecans in the shell. If this squirrel is burying the peanuts, there must be quite a large mound around here somewhere, but I haven’t seen it.

While this was going on, my wife heard from her sister that birds love their bird bath, so she ordered one for our house.

So far, we have been entertained by the squirrel and pleased by the return of the cardinals, as well as a few other birds that I have not yet identified. As far as the bird bath, let’s just say we have a bunch of dirty birds living near us.

Our New Bird Bath and Feeder

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When my wife took out our Christmas decorations, she suggested we do the Advent calendar again, by which she meant I do the Advent calendar again. I didn’t do it last year because of our move to our current house, but I did it the two previous years.

Our Advent calendar is made of wood and shaped like a house with 24 drawers. The first year I did it, I didn’t have 24 gifts that would fit in the drawers, so I wrapped them, wrote a short poem for each, and tucked the poems into the drawers. A word of advice: Be careful when you do something overly nice for your spouse, because it will soon be expected. If my wife is reading this, I’m just kidding.

Anyway, because of the small size of our house and its limited space, I needed to ensure my gifts would not take up too much room. Because of the number of gifts, jewelry was not an option. One of the gifts I chose, partly because it would take up no room in the house, was a combination bird bath and feeder with a planter at the bottom.

I did not take a photo of it from the outside, but here it is from Frankie’s perspective.

There is a cardinal on the feeder in the above photo and a squirrel in the photo below.

I worried that squirrels might tip it over, so I attached it to a wooden stake.

So far, the cats don’t seem to care much about it, but we humans have enjoyed seeing the wildlife from our front porch.