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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019
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Jonathan Williams
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DailyAstorian
FEATHERED FRIENDS
IN YOUR BACKYARD
Photos by Jane Webb
A house fi nch.
Make birding at home
easy with these tips
By PATTY HARDIN
W
e are fortunate to live in an
area so rich in bird life.
Are you interested in learn-
ing more about the birds you see every
day?
Learning about our feathered friends
need not be overwhelming. There are
many resources available to get you started
on what could become a lifetime pursuit.
It isn’t necessary to travel great dis-
tances to enjoy bird watching. You can
watch them from the comfort of your own
home or yard.
Bringing birds to your backyard
There are several things a beginning
birder can do to attract birds to his or her
yard.
“A bird bath is an essential need for
birds,” said Dr. Madeline Kalbach, a pro-
fessor emeritus of sociology at the Univer-
sity of Calgary. “They will come to bathe
and drink.”
It is important to keep the baths clean to
help prevent the spread of disease among
birds.
You can also plant a bird-friendly
garden.
“Gardening with native plants provides
food and habitat for the birds. Huckle-
berry, salmon berries and other fruit-bear-
ing trees or shrubs will help to attract birds
to one’s yard,” Kalbach said.
Tube-like fl owers are welcome addi-
tions to a bird garden. Hummingbirds are
partial to these kinds of fl owers, Kalbach
said.
Peninsula resident David Ryan is an
avid and evolving birder. He offered tips
for attracting birds to your yard.
“For habitat, bird houses are helpful.
Cultivating native vegetation also encour-
ages bird visitors,” Ryan said.
Keeping parts of your yard “messy”
or “rough” with some unmowed areas,
untended vegetation and brush piles is
good for birds, Ryan said.
“Timing yard work around nesting
and breeding seasons also helps our bird
friends and keeps them coming to your
yard,” Ryan added.
Bird feeders are popular with birding
enthusiasts, beginners and experienced
alike.
Kalbach suggested putting up feeders
containing appropriate seeds such as black
oilseed, which are the most nourishing of
the sunfl ower seeds.
Other birds prefer different types of
seeds, she said. Finches enjoy niger or
thistle seed while birds that feed on the
ground often enjoy white millet. Suet is
also enjoyed by chickadees, nuthatches
and woodpeckers.
You don’t have to buy ready-made
suet blocks or suet block holders. Recipes
can be found online and cookie cutters or
small empty cat food cans make great suet
holders.
Many bird lovers have probably fed
bread to birds and ducks, perhaps toss-
A bird on the Long Beach Peninsula.
A goldfi nch.
ing bits to them on a lake or pond. They
gobble it up and they’re no longer hungry,
right? Wrong.
“It’s terrible for them,” Ryan said.
Too much bread can cause weight
gain and malnutrition in birds. The bread
expands in their stomachs and they think
they are full.
Photography is also often a part of bird
watching. Peninsula resident and con-
tributing photographer for the Chinook
Observer, Jane Webb, started photograph-
ing birds waiting for other wildlife to
show.
“Then it became a challenge,” Webb
said, “to not only photograph birds sitting
but in fl ight.”
Largely self-taught, Webb likes to pho-
tograph birds that hunt or fi sh.
Enriching lives
Birds offer much to enrich our own
lives.
“Appreciating birds also means under-
standing and appreciating the world
around us,” Ryan said. “Whether it’s your
own backyard or some far-fl ung vacation
spot, being in tune with birds helps us con-
nect to the places in which we live, work
and play.”
He hopes appreciating birds encour-
ages people to take better care of areas
they live in.
A person’s interest in birds can be the
result of family infl uence, a general inter-
est in the outdoors or good old-fashioned
curiosity.
Kalbach said her interest in birds began
as a result of her family’s interest in wild-
life and nature.
“My favorite aunt and uncle were avid
birdwatchers and belonged to a local nat-
uralists’ club,” she said. “I was invited to
join when I began teaching. The naturalist
club sent me to a provincial-wide natural-
ist club camp. From then on birding and
nature became major interests.”
Ryan got into birding a little later in
life.
“Birding didn’t really become a focus
until I got older, started working as a for-
ester and met a friend who introduced
birding,” Ryan said.
A seminal moment came for Ryan
when he and that friend were hiking in the
Rocky Mountains.
Ryan said the thing that made his day
for he and his friend was when they were
sitting on a high bald mountain and sud-
denly a cyclone of hundreds to nearly a
thousand small birds came swirling up
around them before moving on.
“My friend was smiling and laughing
the rest of the day after having that expe-
rience with gray-crowned rosy fi nches,”
Ryan said. “They are an extreme habitat
bird and were a signal to him of just how
special a place we were in. That was my
turning point.”
Patty Hardin is a freelance writer in
Long Beach, Washington.