Keeping squirrels away from feeders can be a constant effort. They eat a lot of seed, which makes maintaining your feeder more costly. They also dominate the feeder, scaring the birds we want to attract away. There’s another good reason to reduce squirrel and chipmunk access to your bird seed: they eat bird eggs and […]
Category: Back Yard Bird Watching
A Pane in the Neck: Reflections on Birds and Windows
We’ve all heard it: the unmistakable thump of a bird smashing into a closed window. We rush outside to assess the situation. With luck, there’s either no bird there or it’s resting on the ground, panting and dazed, and flies away in a few minutes. Sometimes, the little one’s not so lucky. Window strikes are […]
Garden Gate: Episode 139 – Tips and Tricks to attract hummingbirds (May 11th, 2018)
On this episode of The Garden Gate I offer a few tips about hummingbirds and some tricks to help you attract them! A hummingbird flaps its wings up to 70 times per second; its heart rate can reach 1,260 beats per minute. Hummingbirds can extend their long, skinny tongues twice as far as the bill, which helps them reach nectar deep inside […]
Garden Gate Episode 134: Bee friendly Bird Food
Pollinators, pollinator gardens, bee houses, bee friendly gardens. These are the BUZZ words these days. But they shouldn’t just be a passing fancy. Bees are very important for our environment. Without their pollinating abilities our grocery store shelves would be almost empty! So how does this relate to bird food? If your bird food is […]
Garden Gate Episode: 133 – Annual Backyard Bird Count with guest Drew Monkman
Drew Monkman is a retired teacher, author and local naturalist. Drew has written the book “Nature’s Year in the Kawartha’s”, an updated version renamed “Nature’s Year” and co-written another “Big Book of Nature” with Jacob Rodenburg of the Kawartha Environment Centre. On this episode of The Garden Gate we talk about the Great Backyard […]
Garden Gate: Episode 130-Attracting Blue Jays and Cardinal
A great way to get a wide variety of birds to your bird feeding station is to offer a variety of bird food specific to each bird. For example, Cardinals like safflower seed but not a lot of other birds do. Cardinals are also shy, so it’s nice to have a bird feeder suited to […]
Garden Gate: Episode 126 – Swallows and other fly catching birds with guest Simon Tapper
CHEX TV airdate: Oct. 13th, 2017 Click link to watch this episode online. On this episode my guest is Simon Tapper a student at Trent University. Simon is studying many different birds in the swallow family. Swallows prefer nesting boxes located in open fields on tall posts. They mainly eat flying insects. We’ve noticed fewer […]
Garden Gate: Episode 125 – Late season American Goldfinches
CHEX TV airdate: Friday Sept. 29th, 2017 Click link to watch this episode online My guest on this episode of The Garden Gate is Trent University student, Simon Tapper, and we’re talking about the American Goldfinch. The goldfinch loves the seeds of Echinacea (Purple coneflower), grasses such as Big Blue stem, Rudbeckia (Black eyed susan). […]
Garden Gate: Episode 123 – Cleaning your bird feeders (Sept. 1st, 2017)
CHEX TV airdate: Friday Sept. 1st Click link to watch this episode on our YouTube channel Cleaning your bird feeders is very important to keep your birds healthy and coming back for more. Tune into this episode or read further to learn more about what you should be doing! Cleaning your bird feeders Moldy or […]
Garden Gate: Episode 121 – Pollinator gardens
Chex TV airdate: August 4th, 2017 Click link to watch this episode online. Butterflies, hummingbirds and bees love the gardens that the Peterborough Pollinators group have created. With funding from various sources that have installed gardens around the City of Peterborough. They also are encouraging home owners to install pollinator gardens themselves to encourage the […]