Saving the Birds of Tomorrow

Taking immediate action to save the birds of tomorrow is one of the aims that Dripworks has prioritized for 2023 and the future. We have always believed in helping our avian friends be safe and healthy by providing these pollinators with a steady food and water supply. To this end, Dripworks will help you enjoy watching and feeding them through all four seasons.

The three organizations that stick out for me regarding their strident conservation efforts are The National Audubon Society, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and The Nature Conservancy. A recent 2022 bird survey put out by The Cornell Lab asks the following six pertinent questions:

1. What do you most enjoy about birds?
2. Where do you enjoy observing birds?
3. Do you have a favorite bird species?
4. Do you think bird conservation should be more of a priority in the U.S.?
5. On a scale of 1-10, how important do you think protecting birds is to our future?
6. Will you join in supporting the ongoing effort to protect birds?

Dripworks hopes you will get on our bandwagon and work with us to protect further and increase the population of these warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathery vertebrates. We have always felt that conserving our most precious resource, water, was vital. We can all do our part by using drip irrigation on our property, just as it is being used by farmers worldwide as a necessity. Here on the west coast of the United States, drought is common. Rivers, lakes, and streams have been drying up at alarming rates. Wells are running dry as water tables continue to go down. Fires have wiped out vast expanses of forests and wildlands, the prime habitats of birds and other creatures so crucial to the web of life. How can we help these creatures survive this loss of their native habitat and biodiversity? A stable climate and the air we breathe depend on doing what we can to ensure that the next generation will have a wonderful and happy life.

If you would like to be entertained, educated, and hopefully excited about the remarkable life of birds, you should watch David Attenborough's series "The Life of Birds" on Apple TV. The filming is simply stunning, with each episode educating viewers about their mastery of flight, their signals and songs, their insatiable appetite, the limits of endurance, their beautiful plumage, the demands of an egg, and the demands of parenthood. Attenborough is a master producer and host who will open this exciting world for you.

Birding is one of North America's favorite pastimes, with about 60 million people providing food for birds in their area. Days are often windy, wet, or extremely cold, and food sources are scarce. Insects around during the spring and summer months have died or are in hibernation. Nonmigratory birds relish being fed seeds and dried fruits for survival in areas with abundant snowfall. This is when we can all provide the best foods to attract diverse birds to the site around your home. Of all the seeds available, the most nutritious and easiest to handle are black-oil sunflower seeds. Many commercial bags of bird seed contain various seeds such as millet, oats, flax, and milo mixed with black-oil sunflower seeds. The problem is that the black-oil sunflower seeds are preferred, leaving the other seed in the feeder uneaten and possibly creating a moldy situation. To avoid this possibility, some folks save seeds from their vegetable gardens, such as Halloween pumpkins and squash that they grew, and use them in their feeders along with the black-oil sunflower seeds. Small birds, such as finches, prefer tiny thistle seeds. Cardinals prefer safflower seed. Many backyard birds enjoy shelled peanuts, although squirrels relish these too. You might want to experiment with all seed types at separate times to see what works best. I would avoid providing table scraps as they might attract mice, rats, neighbor's cats, or other undesirable critters.

During the winter and year, you will attract insect-eating birds such as chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers to your property by offering suet (beef fat). Birds in cold climates during the winter months often seek this source of high protein food that comes as a solid "cake" with seed inside such as corn, milo, wheat, millet, and sunflower seed. Around my property are many woodpeckers. I see them latching onto the soft bark of fir and pine trees and, most definitely, the bark of tall palm trees for the insects that live there. If you hang a suet feeder from a branch of a tree or a wooden pole, you'll find that some new varieties of feathered friends will become a common site, and the winter months are a good time to get this set up.

To learn more about feeding birds with Dripworks' All-Season High Energy Suet and to sign up for your monthly suet cake subscription go to dripworks.com. Learn more on how to make your property more attractive to birds and other creatures that are so important to the health of all the plants we depend by reading some more DripWorks articles online. To speak to a knowledgeable rep, call 800-522-3747. If you want help using their "chat" service, you can do that on your computer or cell phone.