Feral Fridays: Feeding the Birds

This post was written by our special guest, Wanda Vesana, founder of the new Feral Homeschooling movement which is talked about these days in all the fashionable circles.  Wanda is the mother of two multitalented and very well behaved children, son Silas and daughter Verna, and you can learn more about her here.  Wanda likes to contribute posts on Fridays when her schedule permits. 

Having a birdfeeder right outside a window of your home is one of the mandatory requirements of homeschooling.  It's such a simple way to see the wonders of nature up close.  All our friends who are parents, regardless of their educational choices, have birdfeeders.  The ones who blog take charming pictures of adorable little song sparrows and chickadees and post them for all to see.  With the Great Backyard Bird Count coming up, we knew we had to get ourselves a bird feeder and participate.  Unfortunately we had a few obstacles.

We got started early with a lovely bird feeder right outside our front window where the kids would see it every day while doing lessons.  (I know for some children, this would be really distracting, and their kids would be hopping up every few minutes.  We solved that problem with duct tape.)  We waited for the flocks of birds we knew would be delighted to visit.  Nothing happened.  We thought perhaps we had inadvertently purchased totally the wrong kind of bird food for our area birds, just trusting that whatever they were selling at our grocery store would work.  So we did some research, and this didn't appear to be the issue.  Finally it dawned on us that the crazy cat lady who lives two houses away and has 17 outdoor cats, might have something to do with the birds' reluctance to come within five feet of the ground.  Finally, we saw a couple of birds on our feeder, but that was when the squirrels found it.  Now squirrels are cute and all, and my kids did love watching them, but they can empty a bird feeder in 30 minutes flat.  We were hoping someone would have invented a poison, or even a voodoo curse, that would kill a squirrel dead within seconds of eating our bird food, but would leave the birds unharmed. No dice. When bird food became a bigger part of our budget than food for our pet leopard Smiley, we knew the hijinks had to end.  What to do?   All birds do not eat the same things that squirrels eat.  We figured the key would be to feed a different kind of bird.  Hummingbird feeders are a good idea; even better if you live in an area where they are present year round.  But we wanted something a bit more, well, exciting.

Here is a photo of our new bird feeder!  It's completely delightful and the squirrels stay well away. (So does the mailman, actually.)  We hung it from a large tree in the front of our lawn, and although we could watch birds from inside our house, we found our car, with its heavily tinted windows, made a perfect blind.  We camped out in it for a few days and took this photo to share with you.

The buzzards took much longer to eat our deer than we anticipated, but still, the time came when we had to take what hadn't already been carried off,  down from the tree.  The kids were so excited, we had to do it again with a new deer.  This time, just when we were about to run out of Pepsi and organic Cheese Doodles in the car, and thinking hard about calling it a day and going inside, we were blessed with one of those once in a lifetime sightings that every birder dreams of!  Fortunately, we got a picture! Enjoy!  (And don't forget to vote for Feral Homeschooling in the poll on the sidebar!)