As an artist, Debra Tyre has always been a nature and wildlife buff, so it was not surprising that her children gave her a bird feeder in 2004, a gift that enhanced her love of nature-journaling, photography, and art. Little did she know her new feeder would be the beginning of her “bird watching adventure."

In January of 2005, an unlikely ice storm swept through Debra’s hometown of Norcross, Georgia, and brought with it a new visitor to her backyard—a Pine Warbler! Debra first noticed the bird singing in nearby pine trees as she filled the feeders each morning. Then one day, while putting out mealworms for the area bluebirds, she was surprised to see him land on the deck only a foot from where she stood.

Nearly every morning for the next two months, the Pine Warbler sang from the trees waiting for Debra to come out. Then, eventually he came knocking! Fluttering his wings at her sliding glass doors, he knocked as if to say, “I’m here! Come feed me!” 

By the end of March, the warbler had stopped coming for his morning visits, and Debra assumed he had moved on. Then, to her surprise one rainy morning the following December, he knocked again. “Imagine my genuine amazement!” Debra wrote.

Memories of a Bird Garden

Debra grew up in a rural area of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula and fondly remembers visits to her grandparents’ home in the nearby small town of Mason where she first fell in love with watching birds. Once a week, her grandmother, Amber Hart, baked bread and filled her kitchen table with a collection of homemade butters, jams, and jellies.

Debra has passed her love of nature on to her own children over the years through various hikes, wilderness ventures, field trips, and visits to wildlife sanctuaries.  In 2004, she was delighted when her children gave her the bird feeder, along with The FeederWatcher’s Guide to Bird Feeding, featuring a bright red male Northern Cardinal on its cover, a reminder of her favorite childhood memories.  Debra wrote, “I think I was hooked before I ever opened the book, and I inhaled the entire book, cover-to-cover, in a single afternoon!”

FeederWatching in Georgia

Debra’s current home is in a suburban neighborhood known as Peachtree Corners, which is cornered by the bends of Chattahoochee River and Peachtree Parkway, about twenty miles north of Atlanta.

Song Sparrow by Debra Tyre

Debra’s daily routine includes scattering a white millet-black-oil sunflower mix on the ground for towhees, thrashers, sparrows and juncos and a corn-peanut-sunflower mix for blue jays, northern flickers, chipmunks, and squirrels. When it gets colder, she also scatters the millet mix on her deck rail and puts out fresh water each day on her “deck-attached bird bath.”

Early to mid-morning and the early afternoon around lunch are her favorite times to watch from her large sliding doors and windows that overlook her deck.

Squirrel Revenge

“Gray squirrels, and sometimes raccoons and opossum, are nothing short of obnoxious where we live,” Debra told us, “and the wildlife has effectively destroyed four tube and three suet feeders over the past few years.”  Fortunately, she says she has found some solutions, including an eight-foot backyard fence, rodent-resistant feeders, and bringing in her suet at night.

Debra enjoys experimenting with custom blends of bird seed for every season. For example, she says, “Nyjer, black-oil sunflower, and white millet is standard summer fare, while in the winter months safflower, peanuts, milo, sunflower hearts, and dried fruits (raisins, cherries, cranberries and dogwood berries) are added.” From fall to spring, she provides live mealworms for the Eastern Bluebirds and various warblers, but “only a handful each day,” she says, “because the Carolina Wrens are a bit piggish and will otherwise quickly deplete my supply.”

According to Debra, the "biggest hit" is her homemade suet, invented from recipes found in The FeederWatcher’s Guide to Bird Feeding and "three years experience." 

The Birds

When asked about her favorite feeder bird, Debra wrote, “That’s a tough call,” as she tends to love all brightly colored birds and says she is fortunate to have so many in Georgia.  Narrowing it down by season, she wrote: “In the winter, I guess that would be the Yellow-rumped Warbler; in spring, the American Goldfinch; in the summer, the Eastern Bluebird, and in the fall, the Northern Cardinal.”

Debra’s most common visitors include Carolina Wrens, Carolina Chickadees, White-throated Sparrows, White-breasted Nuthatches, Brown-headed Nuthatches, Eastern Bluebirds, and Downy Woodpeckers. Last winter, she saw some unusual birds in her yard, including a Cedar Waxwing that stopped by for a drink and her family’s first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, which she says was “an oddly-marked juvenile which took two days to identify and who stayed until breeding season began.” This year's newcomers have included a Cooper's Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and a small flock of Red-winged Blackbirds.

FeederWatching Tips

According to Debra, it is important to experiment with feeders and seed until you find what works in your area. She also highly recommends making your own suet, saying "it’s fun, economical, can be done in an afternoon, and keeps months in the freezer. Be sure to research bird-safe ingredients first!” Finally, she suggests keeping a nature or bird journal, either online or in a homemade notebook, as she finds it to be a valuable resource from year to year.

Learning through Birding

As time permits, Debra participates in the Great Backyard Bird Count, reports data for eBird, and has attended the Georgia Hummingbird Festival for the past two years with her family.

Debra wrote: “My husband, Mitchell, and I have lived in Peachtree Corners since 1991, with our sons, Damen & Tyler Blackgrave. We included bird watching and nature journaling in our homeschool science curriculum. Although my husband and I have recently become empty-nesters, the boys still (secretly) enjoy watching the feeders when home for visits." In developing observation skills through creative disciplines, she says, "we not only learn about birds, we are learning new things about one another and God's creation, in a mystical, cosmic kind of way.”