It didn’t start out that way. In the beginning, just two, five pounds of seed each, bird feeders were located on my back deck. This lasted from 2005 to 2018, when we moved. Now, there was no good place to hang these two feeders, and besides, they were now all rusted and ugly. I don’t do ugly. After a massive cyber-search, I found a smaller, lovely feeder that had a solar panel on the top. This feeder would light up at night, and I could see how much seed to refill. This new feeder worked great but didn’t attract the vast number of birds that previously flocked to my feeders. It was placed on a hook outside of my siding glass door, and I could see it from the kitchen and dining area.
In addition, in 2018, I purchased a gorgeous glass birdbath that featured a beautiful peacock on the rim. I had placed it in my Zen garden off my front porch. I couldn’t see it from the window by my desk. In the summer of 2022, I moved it to the back deck and placed it where I could see it from my desk as I worked. The birds came to bathe several times a day, and sometimes, as many as ten sparrows were bathing in it at one time. What fun to watch. Too bad I had to take the birdbath in during the winter for fear the glass might break in the cold.
Now, I could see my birds in two places all day. One day, I noticed that some mourning doves were eating the small amount of seeds that dropped off the feeder onto the deck. They were too big to perch on the feeder, so I started tossing some seeds onto the deck for them.
One day, a squirrel appeared and started to eat the seeds on the deck. Then, as fate would have it, my daughter brought home a small bag of unshelled peanuts. I didn’t eat many of them, nor did she. I wondered if the squirrel would eat them, so I threw a handful of nuts on the deck. Three squirrels appeared and quickly scarfed them up. My aviary was now becoming a zoo. I loved it.
Yesterday, we had a huge snowstorm that dropped over ten inches of snow on my deck. Knowing the birds needed extra seeds to keep warm, I tossed handfuls of seeds on the deck several times during the day. At one point, I counted over twenty birds munching away on my seed feast.
With temperatures dipping into the single digits this morning, the snow glistened in the sun and refused to melt. I threw out more seeds and nuts and waited to see what birds or squirrels would arrive. Much to my surprise, a huge Blue Jay swooped in and flew off with an unshelled peanut in its beak! It was the first time in over twenty years that a jay had visited my aviary. I was thrilled. I tossed out more nuts and seeds, sat back, and enjoyed my aviary/zoo enjoying their breakfast as I sipped my hot tea.
