Bird Watching

My parents have a whole bunch of bird-feeders in their yard, and this year they have been attracting Baltimore orioles. These birds are a brilliant shade of orange, so it's no wonder that the way to attract them is with orange slices. Apparently the orange slices lure them in, where a nice cup of grape jelly is waiting for them to eat. This set-up can be as simple as half an orange nailed to a tree with a small dish of grape jelly next to it. Or, there are feeders designed with orioles in mind that have spots for two orange slices and a cup for the jelly in the middle. My dad set us up with one of these (after my attempts to lure an oriole with my own handmade version wasn't working), as well as a finch feeder and a feeder for suet logs.

It's only been about a week and a half since we put the feeders up and we've had great luck with the finch feeder. Here are a male and female goldfinch on a date at our feeder:

And here is a house finch on the feeder just this morning:

We still haven't had an oriole stop by, so last weekend I went to my parents' house to check out their birds. There were so many! I saw finches, woodpeckers, bluejays, a hummingbird and a Baltimore oriole:

The hummingbird was way too quick for me to get a photograph of it, but boy was it cool! Our kids are really enjoying the feeders, too. We look out the window every time we go by now, checking for birds. And we aren't the only ones:

Do you have feeders? What kind of birds do you get?

I'm still working on my bird beads. This little red hen is too chubby to fly up to the feeder, so she's just waiting on a lounge chair for someone to feed her.