I fish, hunt and enjoy watching birds

Pileated woodpecker on suet. Ringneck pheasant below.

Bird watching is something I do year ‘round. It’s been a longtime habit, and this is particularly so during the winter months when forage is tough to find under the snow and ice.

Each day, without fair, I measure the snow depth on my deck railing. So far, we are at about 110 inches of snow. We have two bird feeders out, and they are refilled every two days. I deliberately pay little attention to the cost. If I knew the cost was high, I’d stil do it because watching winter bird life keeps me tuned in with winter.

It also helps me give something back to the birds that provide me with so much enjoyment all year. Food plots were planted, and they feed deer and other animals and birds from the first green-up until the winter snow flies.

Winter birds add a bright spot to winters.

The birds feed every day at my place. There are sunflower seeds and thistle seed feeders. The woodpeckers get a big chunk of suet, and some of the other birds peck at it a bit.

Seventy-five yards behind my house is one of my food plots. There's not much to it now that deep snow has covered the ground although deer occasionally paw through the snow and nibble at the old clover and purple-top turnips. It becomes a major source of nutrition during the spring, summer and fall months.


It satisfies all the rules that pertain to winter feeding. I no longer can distribute carrots, corn and sugar beets over the once-prescribed 10 X 10-foot area, and each day when I went out, there would be deer tracks everywhere but adding some corn to the winter deer diet is now illegal. supposedly because of the Chronic Wasting Disease scare three years ago.

So far there is very little sign of wild turkeys near us, and I seldom see them until the winter weather turns harsh. Right now, our area seems to be inhabited by a few does and young fawns from last spring although it's possible a buck that has lost his antlers may be coming in, but in all honesty, since the no baiting, no-feeding law went into effect nearly three years ago, the deer have not been coming to my food plot with any regularity. It’s hard to compete with standing corn fields.

Mind you: before last night and today's snow and 15-degree temperatures, the snow has been too deep for easy deer travel. We seldom see deer once the snow gets knee-high to an adult human. The deer vacate such upland country and head for traditional low-lying deer yards where food usually isn’t any more plentiful.

In summer we have a bird bath and orange rinds nearby.

Frankly, I'm not 100 percent sure what comes to dine on the food plot behind the house. Deer are common in early and late winter, and so too are rabbit and squirrels. On a warm sunny day we occasionally see a 'possum or raccoon track in the melting snow.

Turkeys might really get hungry this winter. We get some ground-feeding birds, amd whenever I fill the feeders, I sprinkle some sunflower and thistle seed on the ground for those birds that seldom fly up to the feeders.

At times we’ve had some turkey roosting near the house, but they seldom do that any more. I think with the open food plots that the land is a bit too open for nightime roosting now.

I enjoy watching the birds all year, and the first several years we lived here, we tried to identify the differ birds that came to weed. Years agp, we had a pair of red-headed woodpecker but they eventually died out or moved on. We still have a passel of downy and hairy woodpeckers.

We see songbirds, game birds and even birds of prey.

The largest bird that visits our bird feeders (primarily the suet feeder) is an adult pileated woodpecker. We have both the male and female of that species, and see them almost every day. Flickers also visit, and they are a fairly large bird. We also get chickadees, goldfinches, grosbeaks, juncos, nuthatches, sparrows and a raft of the smaller downy and hairy woodpeckers. We quit counting the birds after we’d seen more than 100, but perhaps it’s time to start counting over again.

We feed to help give something back to the wildlife community. It can be a major expense, but I've found that it makes me feel good. And watching the birds as they feed is far more entertaining than watching television.

For more information, go to any book store or the National Geographic Online Bookstore. They have other bird books.

I recently received a copy of National Geographic’s Global Birding by Les Beletsky. It’s a big book, and perhaps more than most of us in Michigan need, but it’s an interesting read with wonderful color photos and great information.

Birds are a part of my life. While I may not go out with binoculars and a bird book in hand, I do enjoy my love affair with birds.