Lol. The birds here don’t really attack the windows, they kinda… clean them? I haven’t gotten around to cleaning my balcony, so it’s a havoc of spiderwebs. So every few months a series of sun birds pluck off these webs to make their nests, like a free window cleaning service! Only once has a bird hit our window.
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I used to have these bottles cut in half with aquatic plants inside them. The plants died, but Sunbirds used to come and splash in the bottle. They used to completely soak themselves. They literally dived in! I had some videos, but I’m not sure how to add them. They (two female purple rumped sunbirds, two males,and one female purple sunbird) rarely used the shallower dishes. The bigger birds preferred the shallow dishes. Thanks though! I’ll try out both with and without stones for bird baths from now.
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iNaturalist does not support videos. But if you can get good frame captures, these can be uploaded as photo observations, and you cann add in the “Notes” a link to the video hosted on another platform.
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Thanks! I’ll try it out.
I have added several bird baths around the garden, and I noticed that each different bath suits a different group of birds.
Tiny baths high in the balcony attract tiny birds. Some birds bath in winter (the big resident ones, because the watering ditch is dry) and others in summer, some birds like more privacy in the bath between the trees, others like the bath where you can see all around…
Some birds I see only when a native plant is fruiting, I don’t know where they live but they come every year to harvest. Some other plants attract them year round, for example I have a big patch of rosemary, and a lot of birds hide inside and eat the bees and wasps that come to the flowers.
There is a bird that sleeps on the grapevine and gets spooked when I open the door. But is not a nest, only a sleeping place.
In my garden there are parts with lots of spiny bushes (wild rose, blackberries, hawthorn) and a lot of little birds come there and nest, I guess is for protection.
I think we try to make houses for birds, but birds do not live in houses! They nest for having babies, but may use some other constructions or refuges temporarily, or when is raining, or when is too cold or hot. Also many visits are seasonal, not year round.
Also I have noticed that many birds do not like my presence. I don’t blame them, I am a human after all. So, many of the infrastructures I try to setup in less circulated places for the shiest birds.
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That’s a very nice summary of the behavior of the birds in your garden.
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You can’t check other people’s sightings list on eBird
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The best way to attract birds in a meaningful way is planting host plants.
I used to live in a semi rural neighborhood never had any birds come until I planted all kinds of native plants. Eventually I did buy a bird house and immediately a pair of house wrens took up residence. I had catbirds, cardinals, finches all coming to the garden.
Where I live now I have a variety of birds that come to the garden and the bird feeders. On this picture I had a bluebird come to the winterberry holly branches I was using as decoration on the window boxes. They gobbled them all up.
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Oh boy, those American Robins are indeed crazy during nesting season! They smear mud on the window panes, and leave a hard-to-clean mess of droppings on all the windowsills. I thought they were just trying to find a ledge deep enough to make a nest on, but last summer I noticed that even the female that was safely sitting on her cozy nest under the eaves, kept doing it.
But it seems my cardinals are much more sane than yours, and my turkeys aren’t as stupid, apparently.
The hummingbirds definitely peer in the windows, if we haven’t put the feeders up by the time they arrive in the spring. I take it to mean that the same ones have safely made the round-trip migration, because they know exactly which windows to look in (kitchen, of course!)
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Yes! My birds are very discreet, until the seeds are finished.
Then, they start jumping on the guardrail and looking at the window like ‘Hey, remember the birds?’
On the other side of the house I have some windows that I don’t like to clean as much, because when I do the blue tit starts fighting himself against them. It only happens in a couple of windows.
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I like to make simple feeders by spreading peanut butter on pinecones, then rolling them in seeds. My birds love them, especially the woodpeckers! I usually put those in a suet feeder, although I’ll sometimes put out fruit, too.
I’m so glad you were able to help your local birds. Do you think you could get a heavier-duty box/tray/saucer to prevent your large birds from breaking them? It seems like your setup was very beneficial to these birds, and it’s a shame you had to take it down.
By the way, you have really cool local birds. What kind is the one with the red cheeks?
These plastic stacking chairs make good bird baths. The gently shelving edge to the water suits many sizes of passerine. Being raised off the ground means the birds are not so vulnerable to cats creeping up on them. They don’t split when it freezes. And if they fill up with dead leaves, they become a little ecosystem producing chironomids and hoverflies.
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Cool! Other than certain birds choosing certain birdbaths, I haven’t really noticed anything like this here. Probably because I don’t really watch birds nowadays ( who could have known taking a vacation could delay studying?). I have a lot to catch up on my local feathered friends. One thing I’ve noticed is two black kites working together to build a nest some distance away (on a telephone tower). That’s all though, mostly. Also, most birds don’t like human presence, so don’t feel insulted. Having seen my neighbors tie up the wings of pigeons and releasing them to be killed by stray cats. I and my father helped one before. So it’s reasonable for them not to trust humans!
I would do this, but I don’t really have this kind of chair. Plus, I think it would attract more mosquito larvae that birds and bugs:(
For anyone dealing with squirrels depleting birdseed from feeders, in addition to native plants that provide food to birds, I’ve had success with getting extra long poles from which to hang the feeders, and adding umbrella-shaped baffles higher than the squirrels can jump. They’re a bit pricey, but, they’ve really worked well for me. Here’s a link to the model I use: https://duncraft.com/collections/tubular-pole-sets-shepherd-staffs/products/super-tall-trio-hanger-with-twister-ground-socket
I bought one and it worked so well that I eventually treated myself to 2 more, so I could see them from any of the windows on the backyard:
The last photo shows the whole setup. (You also need to be sure there’s nothing the squirrels can launch from - I ended up moving the birdbath further away than shown above when I saw they used it to hop above the baffle.) I’ve had them for about 10 years now. (I do give the squirrels and chipmunks their own treats on the ground, and they also clean up whatever the birds drop.)
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Good advice! I have a friend with this problem- I’ll share this with him.
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What I do is have a separate feeder which the squirrels can easily eat from, so there’s no need to wreck the rest of the setup.
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Wow, you have the most options of feeders I have ever seen! Something for everyone, including fruit.
No doubt your birds give you a 
rating!
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Ha ha, yeah, I do enjoy variety. (-:
This made me think of a question. We know about fruit feeder for tropical birds, like this one in Panama. But there are seed-eating tropical birds, too. Does anyone feed those?