Featured
FeederWatcher:
Michael Wiegand
Michael Wiegand became hooked on birds at the age of thirty while watching Western Scrub-Jays fly through the yard of his first home in an older, semi-rural part of San Diego, California.
“I thought ah-hah! I bet if I put some peanuts out in an old pie tin nailed up on a post in the garden, they'll stop and visit me," he wrote. At that point, he rounded up a stake, some peanuts, and a pie tin, and says, “the rest is history!”
Today, Michael lives in the foothills, twenty-five miles northwest of Boise in the old mining town of Pearl, Idaho. “We are very fortunate to not only live in a rural area with very few homes but also along a migratory corridor that funnels birds to our yard...especially in winter!” he wrote. |
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| Michael Wiegand |
| Over the years, he has added a variety of native plantings to his yard, including hawthorn, serviceberry, chokecherry, currant, and juniper. Michael describes the four-acre lot that he inherited as a "mostly coniferous setting," which includes “a shrub-steppe habitat with a ribbon of riparian habitat" coursing through it. The combination of mature Austrian pine trees, flowering fruit trees, and native plants, he knows firsthand, “makes for a true birding magnet.” He also maintains two large brush piles, providing additional cover for the birds, as well as several bird baths. |
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Michael Wiegand's Count Site |
 Early Birding
“Birding is like a treasure hunt for me,” Michael told us. “The first thing I do every morning is put on my glasses and grab my binoculars and head for the bedroom window before I even get dressed.” One day, he says he will write a book about his routine and call it “Confessions of the Naked Birder!” With an array of feeders hanging from an old ash tree outside his bedroom window, Michael spends hours every winter weekend morning watching and keeping a tally. The feeders are a “magnet to the over-wintering birds,” he says, bringing “hundreds of birds…with several vagrants mixed in each season.”
Bird Magnet |
| A variety of nearly forty feeders is scattered throughout the Count Site, which Michael says is the key to attracting multiple species. He provides hopper and tube feeders, a hanging tray, suet cages, nyjer socks, and peanut feeders, among other types. In most of his hopper, tray, and tube feeders, he offers mixed seed with millet, cracked corn, black-oil sunflower seed, some peanuts, and mixed nuts. In addition, he provides nyjer seed in both sock and tube feeders. Michael also has sunflower seed feeders and fills his suet feeders with both commercial and homemade suet. |
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House Finches and American Goldfinches
by Michael Wiegand |
| For the ground-feeding birds such as sparrows and juncos, he sprinkles millet and cracked corn under shrubs and trees. With about two dozen species visiting his feeders each winter weekend, he says, the birds consume an average of 750 pounds of bird seed per month, though some months call for over a thousand pounds. |
| Feeding Frenzy |
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According to Michael, approximately one thousand birds visit his feeders each weekend, with some counts surpassing a thousand each day. The highest concentrations occur with Red-winged Blackbirds, California Quail, American Goldfinches, Pine Siskins, Mourning Doves, White-crowned Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos and House Finches, all of which he says have visited in flocks of one hundred or more almost every winter. He says, “We now have registered 105 different bird species in our yard in the nine years I've lived here.” Of those visitors, the House Finch is the most common year-round, but Michael’s favorite feeder birds are the Mountain Chickadees that occasionally visit: “They are gregarious and fun to watch. They inspect and/or sample something from almost every feeder in the yard.” |
| Feasting at the feeders by Michael Wiegand |
The Common Redpoll, his most unusual to date, came in the winter of 2000 and sadly never returned. In addition, he wrote: “We also attract lots of owls (screech, saw-whet, barn, barred and great-horned) and hawks (coopers, sharp-shinned, goshawk, harrier and red-tailed) throughout the year.” |
Natural Tendencies
In addition to participating in and helping to promote Project FeederWatch, Michael leads voluntary nature walks in and around his home site, as well as in the greater Boise area a few times a year. He says, the nature walks help folks to “understand the importance of, and association of, good habitat and wildlife.” Several years ago, he also started his own business, Habiscapes, which specializes in native plant restoration projects in planned communities and “xeriscapes/birdscapes” in private homes.
Feeding tips
The key to species variety, Michael says, is an assortment of feeder types and food offerings, “coupled with an enhanced native landscape.” He also reminds us: “Don't forget to put out fresh and dried fruit offerings at the appropriate times!” Most importantly, “Enjoy the birds and never stop experimenting with your yard or your feeders...you never know what will show up!”
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