Guest Author - Lisa Shea

To watch birds in your back yard, first you need some birds! Here are steps to get you going.

FOOD CHOICES

First, study up on the food choices to make available. For this particular course it would be good to have out the following choices.

Black Oil Sunflower Seeds
Great for just about every bird on the list. Any shape of feeder will do fine.

Thistle
This is pretty key for getting any finches to show up in your yard. Thistle usually goes into a tube-shaped feeder with really thin holes in it.

Suet
This is about the only thing which will get woodpeckers to come and visit you. Suet can just be hung up in old onion bags, or they have metal suet holders that are pretty cheap (around $1).

PROVIDE WATER
Water is CRITICAL to attracting birds. You don't need an elaborate waterfall setup. Just find an old cake pan and fill it with water. You want it to be shallow, so the birds don't drown. Putting a rock or two for them to hop onto can be helpful. Keep the water fresh.

KEEP IT QUIET
While birds do get used to lots of noise, you'll see more birds if you can set up their food and water somewhere relatively quiet, and near trees so they can go to and from the food.

Once you've got your environment set up to welcome in the birds, it's time to get started watching for them!

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