CLIMBER'S RUN BIRD FEEDERS

    Birds and mammals coming to bird feeders in winter are entertaining and enjoyable.  We can appreciate their beauties and interesting everyday routines close-up and right at home because of those feeders.  

     Some public parks maintain feeders that people can view from a blind, or see on-line because of live cameras and computer screens in the comfort of their homes.

     Feeders in woodland, thicket and overgrown field settings at Climber's Run Nature Center in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania can be watched on computer screens the year around.  Each winter day those feeders are almost constantly alive with several kinds of birds from the nearby habitats mentioned above.      

     Downy, hairy, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers are permanent resident, woodland birds that regularly come to the feeders to ingest suet and sunflower seeds.  These attractive woodpeckers also use their sharp beaks to chip into bark and dead wood to get invertebrates to consume.  And they create nurseries in cavities they chisel out themselves.  Many of those woodpecker holes, when abandoned, are used by a variety of other kinds of small, woods birds, including chickadees, house wrens and nuthatches.  

     Some other kinds of handsome forest birds coming to the feeders at Climber's Run to consume seeds and suet are permanent resident Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, Carolina wrens and blue jays.  All those species, except the wrens and jays, live year around and raise young in tree cavities, including deserted woodpecker holes.  The wrens shelter on winter nights in, or under, hollow logs and piles of limbs on the ground while jays roost in evergreens or shrubbery.  

     All these birds, except jays, ingest insect eggs and weed seeds during winter.  Blue jays eat lots of acorns in winter.

     Several kinds of seed-eating birds, including northern cardinals, song sparrows, white-throated sparrows, American goldfinches and house finches regularly come to the Climber's Run feeders to eat seeds through winter.  These species add more beauty and interest to those feeders, and the surrounding thickets and weedy open areas near the feeders, where they also ingest weed seeds.  All these species are permanent residents at Climber's Run except the white-throats that only winter this far south.  And all these seed-eating birds spend winter nights huddled among predator and wind-blocking shrubbery.   

     Wintering insect-eating Carolina wrens and berry-eating eastern bluebirds are surprises at feeders.  But these adaptable species are there to eat sunflower seeds and suet.  The bluebirds spend winter nights in sheltering tree cavities and bird houses.    

     All these lovely birds reflect the habitats (woods, thickets, weedy pastures and a stream) where they winter around Climber's Run's feeders.  And they are all noticeably more desperate for food during a snowfall.  More of them show up at the feeders at once, more regularly, and they are more aggressive about getting food.  

     Gray squirrels and flying squirrels feed at these feeders, the grays by day, and the flying at night.  Gray squirrels retreat at dusk to their cozy, sheltering homes in tree hollows or in leafy nests they build in forks of tree branches.   

     Small and big-eyed, flying squirrels are active through winter.  They quickly glide from tree to tree in search of acorns, nuts and seeds to ingest.  They land on Climber's Run feeders at night and are seen by artificial lights. Sometimes a screech owl is seen attacking a flying squirrel at the feeders.  But I have not seen a squirrel being caught by an owl because those rodents are so quick.   

     Birds and mammals at feeders are interesting.  But be sure there is shelter and water near the feeders.  Or you can watch feeders, day and night, on computer screens.  

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