Don’t The Birds Know There’s A Recession
Our backyard is a busy, and expensive, place. All the birds coming to our feeders mean we are spending some serious money feeding them. Don’t they know there’s a recession? 
We really enjoy all the feathered things, and we don’t want them to leave, but the outlay of cash is more than we were budgeting that’s for sure. So, in order to save some money we finally broke down and started making our own suet. The birds seem to like it so far.
The Recipe Please
There are a ton of possibilities for suet recipes. People use real suet, beef tallow, bacon fat, or lard for the “base” and mix in all kinds of other stuff. We wanted to make something that would survive the hot, humid weather here in Georgia without melting (although it is funny to see the birds slide down the pole right past the feeder because of the melted suet on it). We found a recipe that is supposedly “no-melt”. It’s going to get warm here this weekend so we’ll see if this “no-melt” recipe we made is truly no-melt. Here it is:
- 1 cup lard
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
- 2 cups quick oatmeal
- 2 cups plain yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- Melt the lard and peanut butter in a pan over low heat.
- Add the rest of the stuff and mix well.
- Pour into a pan to cool down (or the containers from the store bought suet you have been using up to now) and put in the fridge to cool down.
- Cut to size and place in your favorite suet feeder.
- Watch the birds tear through it forcing you to make more
Saving The Big Bucks
All the ingredients cost us about $11 (enough for two+ batches). We should be able to get 10-12 feeders full of suet once we get through all of it. That works out to about $1 a pop which is less than 50% of the $2.19 we were paying for each of the No-Melt Suet packs at our local pet supply store. We won’t be retiring early because of the money we save, but a dollar here and there adds up over time.
What other suet recipes have you found that work well in hot weather?
Yesterday Pam and I came home from work to find the little “stick on” window feeder that is attached to our deck door by suction cups hanging by one suction cup about to fall off. We had no idea how that happened. In addition the birds had been eating a lot of seed from the feeder, or so we thought.
Well, today, when I came home for lunch, I glanced over to the window and saw something that really caught my attention. I ran upstairs and grabbed the camera and caught the little thief red handed, or should I say “red pawed”
This squirrel was wedged in the feeder happily eating away at all the seed! I don’t know how he got up there. The feeder is about 4 feet off the deck and there’s no “launching pads” nearby. As I moved closer to the window he finally saw me, jumped down, and scampered away. I guess we need to put the feeder a little higher on the window, huh.
December 25, 2008 – 8:00 am
Merry Christmas
And
Happy Holidays to Everyone!
Here are some pictures of the birds from our backyard bird feeder, our gift to all of you. Thanks for reading and here’s to a great 2009!
This past weekend we “upgraded” our feeder setup. So far, the birds seem to really like it. One of the benefits to this setup is that it is a little easier to take photos of the birds as they sit and eat. I’m still figuring out how to take the best quality pictures from the 2nd floor bedroom but I got quite a few and thought I’d share some of them:
Here’s a Cardinal and Carolina Wren sharing the platform feeder. We have a ton of Cardinals in our yard and they really seem to like the platform.
This Tufted Titmouse was just about to fly off as I took this picture.
We have a couple of Red Bellied Woodpeckers that frequent the suet feeder. They are a very pretty bird and fun to watch.
We have a lot of House Finches and the platform feeder has become their new favorite place.
The Eastern Towhee stays on the ground and picks up whatever he can that falls from the feeders.
We have a lot of Bluebirds in our yard this Winter. They really like the suet feeder but for some reason this one was on the ground with his buddy the Cardinal.
Here’s an OK picture of a Bluebird on the suet feeder. My camera has a hard time focusing on the small area of the feeder so the picture is a little blurry.
I’m enjoying the challenge of photographing the birds that visit our feeders. Hopefully I can get better quality photos by tweaking the settings on the camera.
What kind of pictures are you able to get of the birds at your feeders?
December 22, 2008 – 10:58 am
This past weekend Pam and I added to our feeder assortment by replacing a feeder that was falling apart and adding a couple of new ones to the mix. Hopefully this will give us a wider variety of birds.
Out With The Old
Here is a picture of our old feeder setup. 
You will see that we had a “tri-tube” feeder along with a finch feeder and a suet cage. We were getting a fair amount of birds. In fact, the feeders were always pretty busy. But the triple tubed feeder was on its last legs. Most of the feeding holes were chewed away, the result of squirrels getting on the feeder before we raised the feeder. The seed would just fall out of the holes and the feeder was almost impossible to clean. The finch feeder didn’t get much action. We think maybe it was because it was so close to the other feeder and the goldfinches supposedly don’t like that.
In With The New
We set out to get a new tube feeder to replace the one we had. 
We went to a couple of stores that sell bird feeders and found one we liked, the BirdQuest Spiral Feeder
. Instead of perches it has a “spiral” that runs from top to bottom. It is easy to clean and holds a lot of seed. In addition we got a Going Green Platform Feeder
which is made from recycled plastic and should last a long time. It has a perforated grate at the bottom to help keep the seed dry. We also pulled a feeder “off the bench” which my parents gave to us a couple of years ago. It is a tube feeder with a cage around it to keep big birds out and allow the smaller birds in to get the food. The suet feeder stayed at the same spot. We took the finch feeder off the feeder pole and put it on a hook attached to our deck, away from the main feeder by about 20 feet. Hopefully that will help the goldfinches come back.
The Results
We set the new feeders up late Saturday afternoon and by Sunday morning the birds were swarming the feeders. They seemed to like the feeders, especially the platform feeder, which had a bunch of nuthatches and cardinals all over it. So far, so good. Another benefit that I didn’t consider is that the new feeder setup makes it easier to get photos of the birds. I took a bunch on Sunday and will post some when I can get through them.
So far we are very happy with the new feeder arrangement. The birds have a wider variety of options which will hopefully attract some new species and the feeders are better positioned for viewing from the house. We are looking forward to seeing all of the birds that will come to visit. Now, I just need a second job to afford all of the seed we are buying!
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