Stokes Birds At Home; Nola: Sbah 101K

I am God and I blend stocks. We created this TV series for all of you it was love birds and more starting right here in your own backyard. Today we'll show you how to attract America's favorites non-birds the beautiful northern cardinal with specialty bird seed feeders in their right landscaping. Then we're going to plunge into the world of ducks. If you're closer look at the special adaptations that make some ducks snaffle and others divers. Next we'll visit virgin to do as he asked Lois and Bianca Why in central Florida where they've created an ABN paradise filled with that calculating Indigo as painted buntings stay sharp and see if you can identify our mystery bird of the week. Look at us several clues throughout the shelves and reveal its identity at the end. Next we'll give you a tip on cleaning out your bird houses and in our final segment time out to watch. We'll share a special moment that we had watching roseate spoonbills at sunset. Major funding for Stokes birds at home is provided by wild

bird food waste and killer 15:00 wild bird mixtures and selective advocates and encourages the feeding of American songbirds and supports education through public television programs like this one. Additional funding is provided by bloggers World magazine where booking adventures begin featuring full color photography expert birding tips and birding hotspot. Swift is good. But marketers designed with burgers in mind that grow Yankee's makers of bird feeders engineered with a lifetime warranty and by Mrs EK von Merton. If. You know the northern cardinal as one of America's favorite backyard birds this is because a male and female are so beautifully colored They both have gorgeous songs and the birds are fairly easy to attract to your backyard. Now there are two ways to attract Cardinals. One

is through feeders in the seed and the other is to creating a good habitat for the birds. So let's talk about seeds first. The cardinal rule of attracting cardinals is to have sunflower seed. This is a black oil sunflower seed. You can tell because it's all black on the outside of the seed. Here's another type of seed right here. This is called hollowed sunflower seed or sunflower chips. This is a sunflower without the holes on the outside. And finally a third type of C is called stripe sunflower seed. You see the stripes there. Now when cardinals eat the seeds it's really neat they take one of these seeds and they just put it in their bill and they manipulate their bill within a few seconds. The whole falls out and there's the nut right inside their mouth and they swallow it. When I try this. It doesn't work at all it is a switch see. I guess that's because I'm not a card. Now the second type of see that you could enjoy for cardinals is called safflower seed. This is white like this it's smaller and has a little bit harder hall

Cardinals love this sometimes we mix it with sunflower seeds so it gets the birds used to it. It's also the case the grackles don't like this as much. So if you want less crackles and more Cardinals try safflower seed. A third seed that cardinals love is Nick seed. This is simply a mix of a variety of seeds. You can see here we have sunflower right there and we have little pieces of peanuts. And then we have cracked corn and the little small ones there are called Millet Cardinals love this and so do a lot of other birds such as toadies and sparrows. So it's a good all around seed. Now where do you put these seeds. A sunflower seed really belongs in a tubular feeder. This is a cylindrical tube with little holes like this portals and perches on the side where the birds can land and get at the seed. This is ideal for sunflower seed. They'll love this so we'll chickadees and not hatches another bird. Just hang it right up there.

And in this Peter I'm going to put some safflower seed coddles love this type of. It's really nice it's got a little dome over the top which keeps the rain off the seat and so the seed stays dry and doesn't rot. The Cardinals can come inside they perch on the ends or jump in and they just love eating the Caesar right around like that. And clinic scene right here this is really good for if you have a tray of cardinals like to feed on a tray like this it's up off the ground it's a flat surface. It has a little screen like this that lets the water run through and we'll just put seed right like this having the water run through keep the seat and getting away and it sort of stays dry and dries out more quickly. Now a neat thing you can see here is sometimes male cardinals pick up a seed carry in their bill over the female and place it right in her bill it's really cute it's called mate feeding. And you can see them do it at the heater or sometimes in the wild. In addition I'll take some of this mixed eat and I'm just going to scatter it on the ground. This will attract

Cardinals because they love to feed on the ground but also get toe he's in mourning and songs bows. So they're the seeds and that's one way to attract Cardinals. But it's also important to think about your whole landscape. How do I add to my landscape to make it a place that cardinals really want to live. The first thing to consider is vegetative structure Carnell is like a mix of vegetative levels. They like low grass like this. They like shrubs that are about human height. They like small trees and they like large trees usually don't find cardinals in all woods or all open fields. This type of mix is often found in suburban backyards and this is why you find Cardinals living there. Now addition to vegetative structure you also want to offer foods just like at the feeders cardinals like seeds offer wild seeds. This is a tall grass and look at the seeds that are coming out here. The cardinals will love these so eat them all year so we always leave some weedy areas or areas with grasses on our property that attract cardinals and

produce seeds. In addition to seeds Cardinals love fruits. Here are blackberries. We have a whole hedge row of blackberries here. And these are soup herb for all types of birds including cardinals. These will ripen in about midsummer and then the cardinals will come to eat the fruits and then they'll eat the seeds inside. When you think about offering fruits for cardinals you want to have fruits that are produced throughout the year. So you want some in early summer. You want some in late summer you want someone fall and summer and winter. This will provide a continuous source of food for the birds. Cardinals will also come to these plants to look for insects and this is particularly when they're breeding. They find insects on the leaves such as little caterpillars or maybe grasshoppers down in the grass and they feed these to the young it probably gives them more protein for the young as they start to develop. So we have the feeders and we also have the food the Cardinals need one more thing they need good places can nest as we sometimes say if you don't have breeding birds you don't have

feeding birds. But not just any tree or shrub will do. Here's a branching structure that will not support a cardinal nest. There are just not enough branches in the right configuration to hold the twigs. The female cardinal comes along like this and she tries to lay twigs on this and they just keep falling off. This is an ash and it won't work for cardinals. Let's go look at a branching structure that will support a cardinal nest. Lilacs provide an excellent habitat for cardinals to nest. You can see the branching structure here it's sort of like a hand pointed upward. They can lay branches across like this and they'll just stay right there. Now the female cardinal does most of the nest building. She first brings a layer of twigs and then she adds a bark for a sort of a base and then she has an inner lining of find plant materials. Now if you do all of these things you put your feeders and you put wild foods and you have nesting shrubs for cardinals. You will have a property in which cardinals can thrive.

Here are our first clues to our mystery bird of the week. At the end of the show we'll tell you who it is. Don't worry there are only 750 birds to choose from. That's a lot. Anyway these clues are so good listen carefully. Our first clue is this bird lives all across the country. Next it feeds almost exclusively on the ground. And finally the male and female look alike except for the colors on their head. Now you may be guessing it's a California quail or a Bob White. Nice try but in fact these birds don't live all across the country. I guess we're just going to have to wait while you're waiting let's take a closer look at birds that feed on the water docks. Ducks are easy to find if you're near water. You have a very good chance of seeing them.

This makes them a great group of birds to watch. You know you might think all of ducks look alike. They've got large bodies big flattened bills and they swim about in the water. But as we take a closer look you're going to see that their shapes and the ways they feed can be really different. The ducks most people see live in small ponds near cities. Most of these are what are called dabbling ducks because they dabble about on the water as they feed. Look for dabbling ducks in park ponds shallow rivers and the edges of lakes. Here's a pair of blue winged teal. Look how they tipped their bodies forward to reach plants growing under the water. And it's funny when they paddle their feet to keep their heads down with some dabblers you may see more of their bottoms and their tops as with these mallards. Watch how this male bluing teal treads the water when his head is up. This stirs up things on the bottom which he then eats. Gamblers eat all

parts of water plants including stems roots and seeds. Here's another pair of babbling ducks. These are called mottled ducks. Like other dabblers when feeding they take in water and plant material. When they come up they expel the excess water out through the tip of their bill. See how these model ducks don't have to do bottoms up. There are two reasons for this. One is they're in a shallow area and the other is this species has a fairly long neck for a duck and this helps it reach food in deeper water. Babbling ducks have legs near the middle of their body. This keeps them well balanced when out of water and makes them a pretty good walkers on land. Another group of ducks peons very differently from dabblers. They're called diving ducks. Look for them along the coast and in deeper Lakes because they're in deeper water. They have to dive down to feed.

Some diving docs like these common IDers off the coast of Alaska live mostly at sea and feed just beyond the breaking waves scoter is are also diving ducks and can be seen feeding off the coast along with IDers. In addition to mussels they also eat clams and oysters. Amazingly both IDers and Scouters eat these mussels home shells and all and then grind them up in their incredibly strong gizzard. You can recognize a diving duck in flight from far off because of the faster Wing be these ducks generally have narrow wings which they have to be rapidly to stay airborne. Look for other diving ducks in freshwater lakes. These include canvas backs which can be recognized by the continuous line of their forehead and long sloping bill and redheads which have a steep forehead and a black tip to their pale blue bills.

Other divers include the buckle heads which have a big white patch on their head and greater and lesser Skop where the males have a white patch along their sides and the females are brown. Look for a third type of feeding in merganser. They eat fish and chase after them instead of dabblers or divers. They can be called chasers. You can find work answers in a variety of water habitats including coastal areas lakes and rivers. But dancers look different from most other dogs. They have a streamlined body a small thin head and a long thin bell. All these adaptations help them swim rapidly through the water. There bill actually has separations along its edges that help it hold onto a fish once it's caught. Watch out his ducks swim along with their heads just under the water. They're looking for the small fish that they eat. When they spot one they can dash after it with incredible speed and quick turns.

Their dancers feet are placed at the back of their bodies. This probably helps them swim faster. It's great in the water but when they get on land they're a little awkward. Next time you're near ducks take a closer look and enjoy their fascinating feeding behavior. Thinking about I mystery bird. If they've narrowed it down to only three hundred fifty birds that's still a lot. But look this is going to help you out. Our mystery bird makes a sound that could be mistaken for an owl. And during courtship they lock their bills and bob their heads up and down. That's a pretty good clue. Want to try it. Maybe later. And speaking of courtship when we were in central Florida we had the good fortune to meet just a lovely couple. What Lois and Leon great. Oh they were terrific. And they've attracted wonderful birds to their feet. Lois and Leon white spend the winters in central Florida. On their small property. They've created a haven for birds with hang bird feeders

a variety of plantings and bird bass. The stars of the show are the spectacular in the GO and painted buntings. My mother and dad came down to Alva in the late 1950s. My dad was principal of this school that's just a block away. And my mother's always fed the birds and she stayed on here after he died until three years ago. She's 96 now and she's in a nursing home. She just she loves the birds and she that doesn't and so I think she's she you know established a pattern a fan of the birds and she had painted bunnies all through the years. So. Three years ago we came down and and took over her house here. And so we've been spending the winters here since and we started hating them. And it seemed that the more feeders we put up the more Bunnings we had. It's just been wonderful. We never get tired of watching them.

Lois and Leon noticed interesting plumage changes in the buntings female Indigo buntings remain Brown all year. In the winter. Male Indigo buntings are modeled blue and brown by spring adult males become blue while first year males remain blue and brown. When the sun shines on there are just so pretty and so it's been fun to watch the changes in them. The paintings are all course full. Full color. When they first come adult male painted buntings remain colorful all year. But first year males resemble the yellowish adult female plantings are the only birds that come to their feeders. They have other visitors as well. Well we have the woodpeckers with several live pictures of Red Belly is and blue jays and cardinals the cardinals come regularly morning and afternoon. And. Around. And the white winged snout the White Wings are evidently moved to this area of Florida. A lot of the people that this

birding club have not seen them before and what they do they don't seem to be in other parts of Lee County. They like it here and I know Leon it is very very helpful he was the one who threw all the chains up over the tall trees to get them to keep the squirrels that we have a lot of swirls in the yard. They're real they're little and they're really fun to watch. Once you get them out of your bird feeders they've been done but still he helps that he puts up all the feeders he helps with. Live fill in the missile and he's just really he has become a very avid birdwatcher and he can see birds that I don't see. His vision is very good. It's so nice to belong to this bird group down here because I think they know there's people who know everything about birds and they always see so much and they share it. They're so good about sharing their knowledge of the earth and we also find so many other places to go that we didn't know about to look for birds.

It's really nice to be a part of a group and a common interest. And these people in this bird group around here from all over the country and Canada. So it's interesting to get to know them. The porch is the best place for Lois and Leon to view the buntings. This is our favorite spot of the whole house. It just is. It's where we live in the weather this year has been just wonderful I don't think there's been a day that we haven't been able to sit out here and the birds come off about all day long. We will bring our book out here and sit and read but we keep watching the birds. Lois thank you so much for inviting us to your beautiful place. This is truly a magical place for indigo buntings. Oh you're welcome I hope you will come back. We will. Yes there are two reasons to clean out your bird houses. The first reason is to get rid of the old nests and prepare the house for the

following nesting season so it's all nice and clean and empty for the birds. The second reason is to prepare it for winter because what many people don't realize is that these bird houses can be used by many species to roost in and sleep in on cold winter nights. So I'm going to clean out this bird house this is a bluebird house. I have placed it out here in the open because this is prime Bluebird habitat so I'll show you some tricks for cleaning out bird houses. This is my special tool. I discovered that a pancake turner fits beautifully under the nest and enables you to lift it out. Just don't use it again for making pancakes. Let's look at this mess what a beautiful blue bird nest. This one is made almost entirely of pine needles. Now usually blue birds make their nest at a fine grasses. But the blue birds that nest on our property always use pine needles so that nice and neat. It's also fairly clean. The parents in fact clean out the droppings of the young and take

them away from the box when the babies are in the box. Let's throw it away there and I'm going to take the pancake turner and scrape out. The remaining junk that's in the box. But when they make it extra clean when I'm going to do is I'm going to wash it out in a very mild bleach solution. Which I'm going to prepare. By taking one. Capsule. And adding it to you. Oh several gallons of water. I. Wish that I don't. And the easiest way to do this is to take the box off the Garden State and put it in so I get more water and it's spreading. I'm going to rinse it out.

All ready for winter residency. I think I'll go Tyler resident not hatch. It's a big good place to spend the winter. This is one of our favorite parts of the show. We're gonna get a chance to share some of our birding experiences with you on a trip to Florida and winter. We captured on video one of North America's most beautiful birds in its native habitat. The roseate spoonbill take a moment with us to watch these wonderful birds. Get our mystery bird it's one of the most common berthing of the morning Deb. You know

when we see Morning Time just about everywhere we go to the mountains we see that we go to the desert we see them and we see them around suburban areas. Morning does our name for the long mournful coo that's given by the males to attract breeding. It sounds like who was who. During the summer they live throughout the United States in southern Canada in the winter. Their range is restricted to mostly the United States. Morning dogs can be recognized by their small head body black spots on their wings and long pointed tail a light blue ring encircles their eye this is a female in color. She's uniformly warm brown all over. The male has an iridescence on the sides of his neck and has a bluish gray on the top of his head. Mourning Doves spend much of their time on the ground feeding on

seeds and insects that they find among the leaf litter. During breeding. You'll often find the male and female feeding together. Like other pigeons and doves mourning doves can drink with their head down and there's Bill preaching Leslie in contact with the water. This differs from most other birds like robins that have to lift their bills up to make the water go down their throat. Well that's it for today. Join us next week when we'll explore how beautiful roses can make good landscapes shrubs for birds. And we'll take a closer look at why birds have that striking colors. You won't want to miss our two part series to Alaska starting next week. It was a wonderful trip wasn't it really what with recess and so many birds we didn't bend with a pen and Judy Marlo who will take us down the Kenai river in search of loons and arctic tern. So join us Don and Lillian. Do you have

questions about birds visit Don and Lillian at Stokes birds at home dot com for answers tips and resources to order a companion products for Stokes birds at home. Call 1 800 3 3 8 8 4 4 0. The 450 page Stokes Field Guide to Birds includes more than 100 color photographs with color tab indexes to make bird of edification easy Also available is a multi CD collection. The Stokes Field Guide to bird songs prices includes shipping and handling order by calling 1 800 3 3 8 8 4 4 0 0 0 credit cards are accepted. Major funding for Stokes birds at home is provided by the New York

wildcard food waste and killer 15:00 wild birds with mixers and selected advocates and encourages the feeding of American songbirds and supports education through public television programs like this one. Additional funding is provided by bloggers World magazine where birding adventures begin featuring full color photography expert birding tips and birding hotspot. Swift is killer but marketers designed with burgers in mind that grow Yankee's makers of bird feeders engineered with a lifetime warranty and by Mrs EK vine Merton's.