Spring Migration is Here, Is Your Yard Ready?

By Jason Frederick

With spring migration here, the following are some ideas to get your yard and you ready for our feathered friends as they make their way back north.

First, if you have a bird bath, give it a good cleaning. A drop of bleach or dish soap and a good rinse will have your bird bath ready and waiting for all to enjoy. If you are able to have a water hose dripping into your bird bath, this will act as a magnet for the birds.

Second, clean your bird feeders. For all your seed feeders, be sure to let them dry out before you restock it with seed. Dish soap and a good rinse will work best to get rid of mold and mildew.

Next, stock up on your bird food and you are ready to go!

If you have some spare time and want to give your visitors a great treat, here is a good suet recipe:

Suet Recipe
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup shelled peanuts
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup cracked corn
1/2 cup of bird seed
1/2 cup of black oil sunflower seed

Melt shortening and peanut butter together and then stir in everything else. Pour mixture into containers to about 1 1/2 inches thick. You can also use a cake pan with wax paper. Cut into squares to fit your suet feeder. Freeze.

You don't have to use all of these ingredients. You can create any combination with whatever you have on hand. As long as the mixture sticks together and stays in your container you should have good results. Mesh plastic-coated metal cage are the best to use and they are easy to clean. Another idea is to use a log. Just put a couple of nice sized holes in it and apply the suet. If all else fails, you can always use pine cones and hang with either a thick rope, like close line or twine, or a wire hanger.

Quick note on why to use shortening rather than lard in the recipe from above: The reason we are feeding the birds, other than to attract them to our yards, is to supply them with food for energy. During migration, birds are using up their energy at a high rate. Fat is a high-energy food for birds. Sunflower seeds are high in fat and a favorite of many birds for this reason.

The best thing you can supply the birds that come to your yard with is something that is high in fat and easy to digest. Because of its chemical composition, lard is about twice as hard to digest as vegetable shortening is. So, birds gain much more energy out of vegetable shortening than they do from animal fat. Vegetable shortening is also healthier for the birds, because it is about a quarter unsaturated fatty acids - having lots of vitamins and essential nutrients in it. Lard has only trace amounts of these vitamins and nutrients.

Part of the reason vegetable shortenings were created in the early 1900s was that animal fats go rancid very quickly. Vegetable shortening was a winner with homemakers because it could last indefinitely without going bad. This is equally as important for birds, so that after a few days in the sun your suet offering does not end up poisoning your feathered friends.

If you can get your hands on actual suet - the beef-kidney-fat variety - this is a high protein fat and therefore a treat for birds. However, real suet has the same quick-rancid problems as other animal fats. Real suet should only be used in small amounts at a time, even during winter, in Florida because the high temperatures will cause the suet to go rancid much quicker than if used in the northern climates.