The Avant-Garden Shop: Your Garden & Bird Store

bird watching

Garden Gate: Episode 202 – Compare the quality (Nov. 6th, 2020)

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Customers often talk about the price of bird food when they should be considering the QUALITY! On this episode I dissect a bag of box store bird food. Even I was shocked at how poor the quality was. Birds don’t eat wheat or milo which is in high quantities in box store mixes. Even the … Read more

All that Glitters IS Gold

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American Goldfinches are the latest-breeding songbird species in this area. They molt their feathers a second time in the summer, which is unusual for most bird species and leads to increasingly bright colours as the season progresses. Their song is a cheerful musical babbling, and their flight call – po-ta-to chip! po-ta-to chip! – is … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 188-Feeding the birds during stressful times (April 10 2020)

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Watching the birds is a very relaxing and stress reducing hobby. We have been overwhelmed at this time with requests to purchase our bird food and bird feeders so have implemented a sidewalk pick up program, trunk drop and also deliveries. Hours of operation have expanded during the pandemic crisis to Tuesday to Saturday from … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 176 – Repairing bird feeders (Oct. 25th, 2019)

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At The Avant-Garden Shop we carry a wide variety of bird feeders but the most popular and best quality are those from Brome, Droll Yankees and Aspects. These feeders are made from high quality materials that last a lifetime. The tubes are made from a special UV protected plastic that doesn’t yellow or crack. The … Read more

Garden Tips: Supporting Birds in the Winter

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Certain needs must be met to for any living creature to survive: food, water, and shelter from inclement weather and predators. These elements work together to form a critter’s habitat. No matter how ideal a habitat may appear to be in one or more of these areas, it will not be used by wildlife if even … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 128 – Photographing birds with guest Rodney Fuentes

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CHEX TV airdate: Friday Nov. 10th, 2017 Garden Gate airs bi-weekly on CHEX TV. Fridays at 8am and 5pm, and the following Monday at 12:30pm Local photographer and filmmaker Rodney Fuentes joins me on this episode with a few tips on photographing birds. You need a good SLR camera but nothing extremely complicated or expensive … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 55 – New Feeders

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caged-squirrel-B Click link to watch this episode. So you have a new feeder! ?Yay! ?You filled it up with bird food. Hung it in a tree. ?It looks good. ?You can see it from the kitchen window and are ready to enjoy those little chirpers. Then you waited. No birds. Days go by. Still no birds. ?What’s going on you say? ?It’s frustrating, but there are often good reasons why you don’t see any birds. On this episode of The Garden Gate on CHEX TV I give some quick tips about why you may not be seeing birds and things you can do to hopefully get them to enjoy your new bird feeder. ?I hope you’ll join me!

Garden Gate: Episode 6 – Identifying birds

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Suet FeederCHEX TV air date: Fri. Feb 22nd, 2013

Click here to watch this episode of?The Garden Gate.

Drew Monkman joins Brenda Ibey, owner of The Avant Garden Shop, to discuss how to identify your favourite birds during nature walks and birdwatching outings.It was a cold day in January but the birds were out singing and we were also entertained by crows chasing a hawk!

Drew Monkman is a retired teacher, naturalist and writer whose popular nature column ?Our changing seasons? appears weekly in the Peterborough Examiner. He participates in wildlife-monitoring programs, including the Breeding Bird Survey and the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas and is author of Nature?s Year in the Kawartha?s. He lives in Peterborough.

His book is available at The Avant-Garden Shop.

 

Garden Gate: Episode 5 – Attracting birds to your back yard with Drew Monkman

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Upside down suet feeder

CHEX TV air date: Fri. Feb 8th, 2013

Click here to watch this episode of?The Garden Gate.

Brenda is joined by special guest, Drew Monkman to talk about ways to attract birds to your backyard. It was a cold day in January but we saw a lovely little woodpecker enjoying some suet and peanuts and also learned a few things!

Drew Monkman is a retired teacher, naturalist and writer whose popular nature column “Our changing seasons” appears weekly in the Peterborough Examiner. He participates in wildlife-monitoring programs, including the Breeding Bird Survey and the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas and is author of Nature’s Year in the Kawartha’s. He lives in Peterborough.

 

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